A Word-Vomit of an Opus
by Punzie the Platypus
Summary: November, 2002: Rory Gilmore takes on NaNoWriMo. If only she can focus on writing her novel while not getting distracted by her mom's quips, Luke's food, Stars Hollows' pokey noses, and Jess Mariano's eyes. Rory/Jess. Updated daily!
1. November 1st

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Star Trek.**

 **So, story-time before we even get to the** ** _regular_** **story: every year since 2013, I've done NaNoWriMo. Whether or not I've won every year is another story altogether, but I've enjoyed doing it immensely. It's pushed me to be a better author who can put out both quality** ** _and_** **quantity, which are almost equally important. So, I thought, "Okay, NaNoWriMo's coming up once again in November, and I probably will be so stressed-out from my job and NaNoWriMo that I won't be able to write much fanfiction for the month of November."**

 **But then I had another thought: "Rory would totally do NaNoWriMo. She'd do Chilton and Friday night visits and go to Luke's Diner and have Jess/Dean frustration** ** _and_** **do NaNoWriMo at the same time, because she's Rory Gilmore.** ** _Duh._** **" (For those who don't know, NaNoWriMo is really National Novel Writing Month: every November, some people who really like to be personally challenged and stressed-out in the month of November attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel. It's fun. And sigh-inducing. Groan-inducing, too. Oddly satisfying when you actually finish it.)**

 **So this is a GG story I'm writing in September/October. It's gonna be (wait for it, this is the clever part, LOL) in 30 chapters so I post one chapter on every day of November, and each chapter is gonna be 1,667 words long (1,667 x 30 = 50,010, or the rate at which you have to write to finish NaNoWriMo before November is up. These 1,667 words chapters will include author's notes, or else I think author's notes accumulated over 30 chapters will add an extra 1K words to my word count. Also, I solemnly swear that** ** _none_** **of my other author's notes are gonna be this long. :P )**

 **So as I write my own personal NaNoWriMo (fingers crossed, LOL), I will post a chapter of this each day of November and between myself and Rory, you will find enough solidarity and empathy to keep you going in your own personal pursuit of a NaNoWriMo win. (If you're doing NaNoWriMo, of course.)**

 **This takes place in November 2002; why that year? Well, it's the year that Rory and Jess get along (together) and I chose it for three reasons: Rory's still in high school; Jess wrote a novel in later seasons, so what's gonna stop him from a challenge in novel-writing; and lastly, I'm a sucker for Rory/Jess. I'm a sucker for any of Rory and her boyfriends, but I've got a soft spot for Jess Mariano. :)**

 **(Welcome to the story. Excuse the fact that one-third of this chapter is an author's note. Y'all good. Story's starting. LOL.)**

November 1st, 2002

"Rory! We gotta go _now_! If we don't, Luke's going to be out of those chocolate-glazed doughnuts and we'll be stuck with those stupid jelly doughnuts," Lorelai called from the kitchen. The sound of the coffeemaker chugging complied with her slamming folders from the Inn onto the kitchen table in pre-caffeine frustration.

Rory danced around in her tights, trying in vain to pull them on. It was a cold November morning; all the reminders of last night's mad partying mocked her with chuckling, taunting tones as she groaned. "I'm trying. Ugh. What did jelly doughnuts ever do to you, anyway? They don't deserve to be so abused."

"I have an abhorrence to anything with the slightest promise of fruit. I am a candy monster whose diet consists mainly and only of sugar, chocolate, high fructose corn syrup, and caramel," Lorelai declared.

On the kitchen table were the remains of their late-night binging. There'd been a Halloween party that took up the entire main square last night; Lorelai and Rory, dressed as Thelma and Louise, snuck Lane in, who was dressed as a ghost ("I went to bed at eight. Which is weird. My mom will definitely suspect that I'm out here. What if she checks my bed? What if she finds out I'm lying? Do you know how much trouble I'd be in? Spirits, monsters, ghosts, _refined sugar_?" Lane gestured to the Kim house. "As you can see, no lights, no decorations, a sign on the door with a cross on it to ward away heathens. If it wasn't the house of Mrs. Kim, it would've been TP-ed by now.") Booths lined the streets; candy was distributed in high-blood-sugar-inducing amounts. Kirk dressed up as a scarecrow and Taylor was the Wizard of Oz. It was a hilariously memorable night.

Rory felt like she was nursing a sugary hangover. In true Gilmore fashion, she and her mother had collected a container of candy that weighed the same amount as a small child, and, once they got home, gave themselves loose rein. Half the stupid container was gone, and everywhere, like the crumbs of Hansel and Gretel, candy wrappers littered their floors. Trails of these wound around to their bedrooms where they succumbed to the sugar in their veins as they passed out in sugar comas.

"I don't want to eat another piece of candy for the rest of my life," Rory groaned, finally tugging up the tights leg. She fell into her swivel chair and looked longingly at the laptop on her desk. She'd gotten it from her grandparents (amidst several protests and witty comments from her mother, who, ultimately, let her keep it). She used it mostly for school projects. She needed to pack it, in fact; Paris Geller couldn't care less about sugar hangovers from Halloween escapades; she would probably be the only person not groaning from last night at the next _Franklin_ staff meeting. Which was today.

Rory _so_ did not want to move from her spot. "Ugh, I don't feel like moving. I don't feel like eating sugary doughnuts 'cause right now, eating so much candy like we did last night is pretty high on my list of bad life choices. I don't feel like going to school and listening to Paris rant about the stupid paper. I don't feel like going to Friday night dinner and having to retell the horribly gruesome details of our Halloween night to Grandma and Grandpa. I just want to lie on my bed and nap forever."

"Gotta stop ya right there, kid. You're sounding more like Lorelai Gilmore than Rory Gilmore," Lorelai said, stepping into the doorway while she yanked on her coat. "Which is understandable, seeing as you shared half the DNA and two-thirds of the name of that remarkable woman, Lorelai Gilmore. But, sorry, kid. You gotta buckle up and face the day and do it with a gritted-teeth smile while your body fights through your agony."

"I feel _awful_ ," Rory sulked.

"Oh-ho, wait until you can drink, kid. You don't know mornings after yet. This is just a mere taste; this is like a vaccine-induced disease rather than the fully contracted version. This isn't _anything_ ," Lorelai gloated.

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel better. Quick, talk about something that will distract me from my stomach," Rory groaned.

"Wow, you're really taking this bad. I thought being exposed to huge sittings of junk food over the years would've strengthened your stomach's tolerance. I blame myself. I'm a horrible mother. Even old witches can fatten little children on candy better than I can," Lorelai tsked.

"Mom, seriously, can you change the subject to _anything_ else in the world besides candy? I can reassure you there are _at least_ a million subjects that aren't candy-related," Rory groaned.

"Wow, a big promise there, kid. Um, okay, let's see." Lorelai played with the leather driving gloves in her hands as she thought. "Um, okay. Oh! You were trying to tell me about something you were going to do today, something about writing that wasn't for the _Franklin_. What was that?"

Here Rory groaned heavily in remembrance. Lorelai, startled, said, "Hey, I didn't even mention candy!"

"No, NaNoWriMo. That starts today. I haven't written a single word. I'm going to be behind on the first day!"

Lorelai stared at her only daughter, fully mystified. "Okay, I missed something or other, starting with what does 'NaNoWriMo' mean? Is it a real word? Can I drop it casually into everyday conversation? Or is it some kind of sci-fi word I wouldn't get 'cause we're more classic Hollywood fans than Star Trek nerds?"

Rory sat up in her swivel chair. She gazed longingly once more at her laptop as she carefully packed it into her school backpack. "NaNoWriMo is something I found on the Internet," she began.

"Oh, is it something dirty?" Lorelai wondered.

Rory evidently didn't hear her. "It stands for National Novel Writing Month. I was gonna do it. I was gonna settle down and write a thousand, six-hundred-and-sixty-seven words a day and have a novel at the end of November. But now it's November, and I've got school and the _Franklin_ and Grandpa and Grandma's and homework and there goes the entire day. There's no point where I can write anything for a novel today, and I'll be behind from the get-go. I'll never be able to finish it."

Lorelai put a hand at her daughter's shoulder. "'Kay, first of all, sounds pretty demanding. But hey, kid, one missed day does not mean that you're going to lose from the get-go. Missing the first three seconds of a race doesn't mean you're not going to cross the finish-line."

Rory gave her a look. "Did you just make a sports reference?"

Lorelai shrugged. "I know; I didn't think myself capable either." She rubbed Rory's shoulder. "What I mean is that you're going to catch up. You'll be fine. Okay?"

Rory breathed in, and nodded. "Okay."

"That's my girl." Lorelai glanced at her watch. "Okay, we gotta go! Or no doughnuts!"

"I'm good _without_ the doughnuts," Rory said, grabbing her bag.

Lorelai dramatically gasped. "Maybe you _aren't_ my daughter. Good _without doughnuts_ , the _idea_. . ."

 **Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Review?**


	2. November 2nd

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Here's chapter two!**

Rory was determined to catch up today; that fiery Gilmore spirit flamed inside of her as she packed up her laptop into her backpack and tied on her shoes. Thankfully she'd made it through yesterday, despite the lead stomach and the slow-response time. School wasn't challenging; the _Franklin_ meeting consisted mainly of Paris debating Madeline and Louise about how adding a fashion police column to the newspaper wouldn't procure it any particular merits but rather degrade its integrity and ultimately ruin the character of a reputable paper; at her grandparents' her mom had an endless supply of witty remarks and ready jumps into other meaningless conversation topics ranging in the one million topics that didn't all find their way back to 'candy'. The moment Rory got home she fell headfirst into bed; she vaguely remembered then brushing her teeth and pulling on some PJs via her mom's suggestion, but maybe she dreamt that. Who knew.

It was now a sunny November morning, full of promises and a relaxing day. Rory entered the kitchen and Lorelai smiled. "My beautiful zombie returns back to the land of the living. How are you doing, kid?"

"I feel like I can be a productive member of society today," Rory said truthfully as she poured herself a cup of much-needed coffee.

"Ohhh," Lorelai said, turning in her chair away from annoying Inn matters scattered on the kitchen table. "What's on today's agenda? Pray tell. Are you going to end world hunger or bring about world peace or win a Nobel prize?"

"Besides all those things, I've got three things to do on my list," Rory said inclusively. Off her fingers, "Go to Luke's and get caught up on my daily caffeine dosage—"

"That's pretty important. If you don't get your daily recommended dosage of sixty-four ounces a day, your health starts failing; even your eternal fountain of enviable youth cannot save you from such a sad, inevitable fate," Lorelai reminded her.

"Totally true. Number two on the list is to hang out with Dean. He's been busy with homework and stuff and we haven't seen each other in a couple of days. Oh, that reminds me. _I_ have homework and stuff. No, wait," Rory wrinkled her nose in thought, "I did it during our _Franklin_ meeting yesterday."

"Isn't she both efficient _and_ able to multitask?" Lorelai praised.

"What I have _not_ done is my NaNoWriMo work," Rory reminded her.

"Oh yeah, that novel thing of yours. Which is gonna be totally great, and when I am finished reading it, if it's not yet on the _New York Times Best-Selling List_ I'll flood their entire department with demands for it until they've given in from my sheer force of will."

"Mom, this will only be a first draft. It probably won't be that great. I might not even finish the entire thing in thirty days. I might not even _win_ NaNoWriMo," Rory reminded her mom, usually always available to bring her back into the realm of reality.

"Okay, fine. I won't be such a dance mom. But hey, word of advice: don't let your grandparents know about it. At all," Lorelai advised, slurping on her coffee.

"Why not?" Rory wondered. "Grandpa and Grandma have always been interested in my writing activities. Just because this isn't journalism doesn't mean that they won't be interested." She took a seat next to her mom and Lorelai sighed, leaning her head against her fist. "Honey, if you decided to spend several hours of your day playing video games, your grandparents would be interested in that. They're interested in _you_ and your life, and, you know, I guess they have a right to be."

"So why would it be a bad thing if they found out that I'm going to write a novel?" Rory wanted to know.

"Oh, because they'd have a field day with it. They're like pigeons who all find this crumb of bread, and they're fighting over it and breaking it apart and squawking all over it within an inch of its life—"

"Since when does a crumb of bread have a life?" Rory wanted to know.

Lorelai gave her a look. "It's all a part of this analogy I'm making up right here on this spot, kid. If Mom and Dad find out you, their beloved granddaughter, are writing a novel, they are going to take it and run with it. They're gonna hound you with questions about it: what is it about, how long will it be, what kind of genre will it be, when you're finished with it, will you publish it? When it's done can they read it? Help edit it? Point out 'helpful' critiques? They'll tell all their high society friends about it. 'Well, my granddaughter is writing a groundbreaking novel at the tender age of only seventeen!' They'll parade you around like a trophy, Rory. Is that what you want?" Lorelai said, a little sadness in her voice.

"Well, they _are_ my grandparents," Rory said slowly. "But they can get carried away. . ."

Lorelai sighed. "I know, kid. I know. This is what happens when they only have one kid and _I_ only have one kid. All their expectations fall on us. Doubly on you since I've proven a disappointment to them every step of the way." She rubbed Rory's shoulder. "If you tell your grandparents they will always ask you about it and never let you hear the end of it. Is that what you want?"

"I mean, I'm going to be thinking about it and _writing_ about it for the whole month of November," Rory said slowly. "It might prove a good conversation to always have at Friday night dinners."

"'Cause my artful meal commentaries in my funny sports commentator voices aren't stimulating enough conversation?" Lorelai faux-gasped.

Rory couldn't help the smile on her face. "You know what I mean!"

Lorelai nodded a little, and sighed. "Yeah, I know what you mean," she relented. She pointed a finger at her daughter and said, "Hey, don't say I didn't warn you!"

"I will always remember you as a fair mother who never said 'I told you so' even when I deserved it," Rory said fairly as she stood up.

"I wouldn't keep that last part of that sentence to write on my gravestone," Lorelai warned as Rory retrieved her backpack.

"I'm heading off to Luke's for some writing and coffee. Are you busy?" Rory asked, shouldering the backpack.

Lorelai sighed. "Yeah. I gotta be at the Inn in an hour. Getting Michel to work all the weekend shifts is turning out to be an even harder job than I thought."

"You'll succeed someday," Rory said encouragingly.

"I know I will. Page me when you get there."

"Love you," came just before Rory closed the front door.

"Love you too," Lorelai called before settling back in her chair to nurse her mug of coffee. She looked at the collected folders in front of her and, looking just like her daughter, wrinkled her nose at them.

* * *

Rory loved walking through Stars Hollow in the autumn. This cool Saturday, with no pressing deadlines and only her own personal goals to achieve, she could spend her sweet time ambling through the town square. A cold wind blew, scattering leaves from the park across the road. Pumpkins and squashes sat on bales of hay like eager spectators at a sports' game. The troubadour played a wistful, reminiscent song that reminded Rory of the years past and this year's end. It provided some much-needed inspiration and food for her muse as she stepped into Luke's Diner.

"Morning, Luke," she said, looking around from the doorway to where there must be _some_ kind of available seat. The place was packed with weekend brunchers, all taking their sweet time gobbling up pancakes and scarfing down bacon. Delicious smells of sausage and coffee greeted her like old friends.

"Rory!" Luke raised a hand from behind the counter. "Hey. Um, sorry, there are no more seats. You need two?"

"Just one," Rory said, walking up to the counter. "Mom's working today."

"Joining the Saturday working crowd. Poor her," Luke said, not entirely sympathetic. "Well, um, we got a counter seat open."

"That'll work." Rory settled down, unpacking her laptop and Luke getting her a cup of coffee. "It's like you read my mind," she said, wrapping her hand around the mug.

"I've learned from a few past experiences that I'm hounded by any Gilmore who doesn't get coffee within two minutes of stepping into this diner," Luke said, pulling out his pad and pen.

"Oh, just a couple of doughnuts, Luke. It's been two whole days and I think I've learned to forgive and forget," Rory said.

"Oh, yeah. Your mom told me about that whole candy thing," Luke said, lifting the lid off the doughnut display. She nodded when his hand wavered over the two chocolate ones.

"I'm not surprised. Thanks, Luke," Rory said, picking up a doughnut and breaking it apart. "I'm going to need all the strength I can."

"Those doughnuts aren't going to give you strength; they'll give you worse things, like obesity and diabetes and heart problems," Luke pointed out.

"Well, they'll give me energy, anyway, which I'm in desperate need of today," Rory said, eating a big bite of doughnut.

"Energy? What are you doing today?" Luke wondered, filling up some stray coffee mugs littering the counter.

"I'm going to write three-thousand-three-hundred-and-thirty-four words of my first novel," Rory said calmly.

Luke gave her a look. "A novel? You're writing a book?"

"That's the general plan."

"Well," Luke shrugged, "good luck with that."

"I'll need it," Rory said to herself as she opened a word document. Luke helped other customers and she concentrated on the blank page, choosing her first words carefully. Then, saying them wordlessly to herself, she slowly started to type.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	3. November 3rd

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

Rory found plenty of time to catch up on NaNoWriMo that Saturday; afterwards she went on a long walk across the lake with Dean; they meandered through all the streets and neighborhoods of town until the sun set and the wind blew harder and her legs ached.

She looked at him wistfully, wondering if they were all right. They were okay, right? Even as she stared at his attentive face, her thoughts drifted far away into the world of her heroine—what life she lived, what life she _would_ live, the characters she'd met, the challenges she faced, and the man she would love—her opening chapter hadn't introduced her love interest yet.

"Rory?" Dean had asked.

"Sorry, I zoomed out or something," Rory said apologetically.

"It's like your body's here but your mind and heart are somewhere very far away," he'd said slowly, like they were words he didn't want to admit but also couldn't keep to himself.

They walked home in silence. Rory was quiet the whole evening and went to bed early.

That next day, Sunday, she brought her laptop along with her mom over to Luke's diner. Their empty plates littered their table as Rory typed and Lorelai distracted herself by starting up sudden and random conversations with other customers at other occupied tables, whether she knew them or not. Lorelai eventually sprung up to rag on Luke as he zigzagged around the claustrophobic dining room; he asked her _very_ politely to buzz off and stop interrupting his customers and she recited the dictionary definition of "small town America".

Those two arguing and the sounds of forks clattering against plates, disgusting smacking, and chairs grinding against the tiled floor hit Rory's ears as white noise. She pushed out of the outside world as all her senses trained on the story before her. Now with ten pages done, she felt like she had a firm foot in the door. She knew where her story stood. Her eyes darted over the word document, correcting underlined words as she came across them. Several sentences were struck from the record and rewritten to clear up her cluttered narrative.

Her eyes never strayed from her computer screen; if she wasn't absentmindedly chewing a hole in her bottom lip, she mouthed words and sentences and whole paragraphs to herself, feeling them roll off her tongue, testing to see if they made any sense. If they didn't, out with the words, gone with the sentences, kicked out were those whole passages. She worried about what Mom said yesterday; if Grandma and Grandpa _did_ ask for to see the manuscript, she wanted to catch any grammatical mistake or distasteful word placement from the outset.

So lost in her own world of her words was she that she didn't notice Jess hanging around the counter. He wiped at the counter with a clean rag just for show, even as his eyes never strayed from Rory. She had no textbooks or notebooks littered about her that might've silently told him that she was lost in homework or a school project. Whatever it was she was doing, she was completely lost in it.

Never one to live with hungry curiosity, Jess quickly put an eye out for Luke, found him occupied in a heated debate two inches away from Lorelai's face ( _For Pete's sake, just kiss already,_ Jess thought to himself, rolling his eyes), and slunk away from the counter. He swiped at the tables he passed just to put out the idea that he was doing his job and stopped opposite Rory. He leaned his palms against her table's edge, the rag pressed hard against some napkins. He leaned forward on his taut arms; if she just looked up, they'd be staring straight into the other's eyes. But even this entire dramatic entrance couldn't capture Rory's attention. She was too far gone on her computer.

"What's so entrancing, Rory?" Jess said, breaking his silence. Obviously, the only way to get her attention was via words.

Rory started and instantly closed her laptop. "None of your business, Jess," she said.

"Really, I gotta know. You haven't looked up from that computer for the past ten minutes. What could be so much more interesting than small town America?" He stretched out his arms as if to encompass the entire diner and beyond.

"The rest of America, and Europe; some of Asia, and even parts of Australia," Rory said promptly.

This confused Jess, which made her smile, seeing as that was her main goal. "What do you mean? That doesn't make any sense," Jess said.

"It makes perfect sense," Rory corrected him. "I'm writing about all those different countries and places outside of Stars Hollows."

"I thought you adored Stars Hollow and would never want to live in any other state or country for a million bucks, same as any other person in this hidden piece of Americana town," Jess said.

"Oh, _I_ do. But Thalia Hilliard doesn't. She's an adventurous girl, following the treasure maps drawn by her explorer grandmother in search of the truth behind her grandmother's adventures," Rory said eagerly. Her eyes gleamed as she leaned forward, her shining eyes staring boldly into Jess's own. He blinked and wanted to stare her down, but he couldn't. ( _For Pete's sake, just kiss already,_ Jess thought to himself, rolling his eyes.)

He grabbed a chair and sat down across from her. His body language spoke of nonchalance and relaxation, but he was wholly attentive to her every move. "So," he said, "who's Thalia Hilliard, and who's her adventurous grandmother?"

"They're my characters in the novel I'm writing," Rory said proudly.

"Wow, a novel," Jess said, leaning forward. "So you're finally actually writing something instead of just always talking about writing?"

"You know I help edit my school newspaper, right?"

"It's far easier to arrange a newspaper than to actually write pieces of it." Jess shrugged.

"You don't think I can write?" Rory asked, just a tad bit indignant at his presumptiveness.

He shrugged again, just to rile her up.

Rory grabbed her laptop and took her mom's empty seat so she no longer sat across from Jess. He couldn't say that he found this new arrangement unpleasant, especially as she opened her laptop and brought it close to him. She was so close to him as she scrolled up to the top of her word document that he could smell the tiny spritz of perfume she and her mom experimented with that morning. Her skin and her hair smelled like roses and sweetness. He turned sharply away from her, silently berating himself for being so completely _whipped_ around her.

"Here is what I have so far." Rory now stared at his face as he read her words quickly, ninety words a minute. He had a clear gaze, defiant and challenging. His brown eyes sometimes swept to the side to glance at her; they'd flit easily back to the laptop screen quicker than a blink. She pretended she didn't notice when he did that as her eyes traveled down from his furrowed eyebrows and smooth cheekbones to his expressive mouth and faint shadow of stubble. She wanted to run a finger along his jaw to stop right below his cupid's bow. She didn't dare; not in Luke's Diner, not in front of everyone, not while she dated Dean. She didn't dare. Well, she didn't dare enough to actually do it.

"Huh," Jess finally said, just to startle her away from staring at his lips. She sat back in her seat—both of them regretting it however necessary it was—and said casually, "So, what do you think?"

"You haven't edited this or anything, have you? This is just a rough first draft?"

"I've done some touch-ups here and there. That's why I was so focused." Rory pulled her closed laptop to her, draping an arm protectively over it. "So, what do you think?"

"Doesn't matter what I think. It's . . ." he waved a hand, wishing he had better control over his own words, "it's your novel, your words. It matters if _you_ like it or not. If you can't write for yourself, then you have no business writing for other people. 'Cause if they hate it, then you'll be left with something you put a lot of work into that no one, not even you, the author, can appreciate."

"Acute observation," Rory said, slipping her laptop into her backpack. "But you still didn't answer my question. Just . . . indulge my human need for validation. Is it the worst thing you've ever read?"

"I can with a clear conscience say that No, it is not the worst thing I've ever read," Jess allowed.

"I'm glad to not be the person who's written the worst thing ever, then," Rory said lamely as she stood up. She wished _she_ had better control of her words now.

Jess stood up as well, as if matching her move for move. "Why are you writing a novel, Rory? Want to make your Ivy League applications look especially appealing? Or just bored with the everyday pieces of entertainment Stars Hollows offers, like our tinier-than-tiny putt-putt course or our eccentric Chat Club store?"

"Oh, don't forget the twenty-four-hour dance marathon next weekend. Dean and I are _so_ looking forward to watching that," Rory said eagerly, clutching her backpack to her chest.

Jess seemed to deflate at the name of _Dean_ , like reality was the needle to his little balloon of a moment with her. "Yeah, dance marathon." He waved his cleaning rag at her lamely, backing away. "See you around, Rory."

She stared at him as he disappeared around the counter, wondering what switch she'd flipped to turn him off like that. Lorelai eventually paid Luke and called her daughter to take leave. Rory still glancing behind the counter, silently wishing he'd pop back up again.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	4. November 4th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

Next day—Monday—Rory could barely concentrate on her schoolwork. She floated to her classes and offered one raised arm before excusing herself to the luxury of staring out the window and imagining out in her mind the next chapter of her story. Her Math teacher called on her three times, making the class titter and Paris glare resentfully at her, as if to say, 'Get your head out of the clouds, Gilmore. You're being called upon; have the common decency to at least blurt out a random answer.'

As the last class let out, Rory found Paris at her side, annoyed. "Honestly, what is wrong with you? This is our senior year, our last year to make impressions on the student body around us, and you're acting like you don't even care. Well, maybe _you_ don't care, but I don't, and I just can't stand around and let people make fools of themselves while wasting away precious opportunities. You know what, actually?" Paris straightened her short self, as if attempting to make her biting mouth and intimidating stature even more imposing, "I _can_ stand around and I _will_. Go ahead—daydream in class, let your mind slip away into shallow, catty thoughts of boys and eyeshadow and parties. In the meantime, I'll keep up a high GPA and be valedictorian of 2003's graduating class!" Paris flounced away and Rory stopped short, looking after her. Since when did Paris care so much about her doing well in her last year?

Whatever. Rory quickly took the bus straight home—home being the town of Stars Hollow, not her front door. She stepped off and quickly entered Luke's diner. She almost forgot to wave "Hi" to Luke before throwing down her backpack onto the nearest empty table.

"Sure, just—just sit anywhere, no big deal," Luke said lamely, sighing as he went to consult Caesar about tonight's closing shift.

Rory made herself at home straight away. Her laptop and homework assignments and textbooks were set up in a very specific order all around the table. She put her backpack by her chair's legs. She pulled back her free hair and rolled up her sleeves. She paged her mom quickly, letting her know where she was and wishing her a good afternoon at the Inn and since she was in town, why couldn't she pick up something from Al's for supper, preferably none of his pancakes, 'cause she cared deeply about their health?

Rory sat back up just as Luke came over with a pen and pad. "Afternoon, Rory," he said. He took a minute to look at the literary academia surrounding her and said, "Settling in for the long haul?"

"Yep. I have twenty questions to answer, three chapters to read, a pop quiz to prep for, and that's just homework. I'm also going to write today's daily dose of NaNoWriMo. Thalia's heading out of her hometown, bound for Morocco with a traveling companion with an unfortunate habit of sneezing."

"Give the companion some allergy meds or this Thalia's going to get tired of him pretty quick," Luke advised. Then he realized what he just said and said, "You're talking about your novel characters, right?"

"You're in the know," Rory affirmed.

Luke nodded, a little relieved. "All right. What can I get you to power you through the afternoon?"

Rory pretended to put some real thought into the question put to her, even though her order had replayed itself through her mind the entire bus ride there. "Can I get a cheese burger, medium rare, no pickle, with extra mayo on the side, and fries?" She looked up at him with such a genuine smile.

"You want lettuce and tomato with that?" Luke muttered, writing away.

"Yes. It'll trick me into thinking I'm eating something healthy."

"You're really not, you know." Luke couldn't help but mutter in wonder to himself, "Where do you put it all away, and where do you even get the appetite to start with?"

"It's all the talking I do. Burns calories for me just as much as weight-lifting does for other people. It wears a girl out. Also, the Gilmore stomach is hereditary, though I'm not sure from which parent Mom got it from," Rory said, shrugging.

Luke shook his head to himself as he turned away, finishing his last scribbles on his pad of paper. "One medium burger and fries, coming right up."

She leaned forward on her hands and called out enthusiastically, "You're the best, Luke!"

He waved a hand dismissively at her, not liking the attention; she grinned and sat back in her chair.

She had just opened her word document when the diner's bell rang. Normally she wouldn't look up, but this time she did; she looked away quickly, but then her eyes darted back up again. Jess had entered holding a spray bottle full of cleaning solution and a dirty old rag; he seemed not to notice her, so she called out, "What's with the cleaning supplies?"

It was an innocent enough question, but it made him stop, swallow, and say in a low voice, "Part of my engine still sounded funny. I went and checked it out. Turns out the source of the noise was a piece of deviled egg." He turned to her and slowly sauntered forward, his words enunciated and deliberate. "When my car got egged eight days ago, somehow, part of a _deviled egg_ got stuck _under_ my hood." He stopped by her table; she tried to dismiss the smile growing on her face (it _was_ kinda funny, whether he thought so or not); he asked, "You wouldn't happen to have _any_ idea how it got there, would you?"

"No, I don't," Rory said. She straightened, said with a straight face, "Like I said before: Mom and I were home all night that night."

He stepped back on his heel; he, of course, didn't believe her, but he'd never seen Rory Gilmore—honest, good girl, poster-child Rory Gilmore—lie before. It was kinda funny. It was something little short of a miracle. She showed him that she wasn't such a stiff neck like she was with Dean. So Jess just said, almost to himself, "Okay." He took another step back. "I believe you."

Rory could read him lying just as he could read her lying. She directed her attention back to her novel, though he proved this a harder challenge to accomplish than it was yesterday. Yesterday her novel stole every last bit of her focus; now her eyes flickered away from the computer screen, almost against her will, to steal little glances at him. That's why she doubled down and typed fiercely when she saw him bring her her ready order.

Jess stopped by the table and scoffed at all her precious schoolbooks. Those giant tomes left a dreadful lack of empty space to put a plate down on. "Where do you want this?" he said, raising his hand and gesturing to the cluttered table.

She waved a hand to a giant physics book. He balanced it precariously and she said, "Thanks."

"Whatever. So, tell me," he asked, turning the chair opposite Rory and sitting down in it, balancing his chin on its back, "what is Thalia Hilliard doing today?"

"Like I told Luke, she's going to Morocco with her sneezing traveling companion." Rory wrote one sentence, but couldn't stay silent under his scrutinizing eyes. "Why do you care what's she doing?"

"She's a character. I read books. I usually end up caring a _little_ about the characters." He sat up straighter. "What's her motivation? Why is she traveling? Why _must_ she travel? What's the point of this book?"

"Whoa, way to get down into it," Rory bristled. "The point of this book is . . . I want to write out this story, and I want to do NaNoWriMo. That's the . . . point of the book. You know, not all books have _points_. This—this isn't the _Iliad_ or somet allegory about the human condition, you know. Sometimes . . . sometimes books are just written because their authors want to write their story out! Maybe it's because if you don't write the story out, it'll just build up inside of you until it _has_ to burst out! Maybe—maybe it's just that!"

"Why are you so riled up?" Jess wanted to know.

"I don't know. Because _you_ rile me up!" was all Rory could think of.

Jess pressed his lips together. She looked at him, a little out of breath, before resolutely staring at her computer.

"So, NaNoWriMo, huh?" he said, scared that the conversation could turn frigid if they remained silent too long.

Rory looked up. "You know what NaNoWriMo is?" she said, cautious, yet surprised.

"Yeah. I go online sometimes. I'm aware of novel writing contests. More so than the average person, anyway." He shrugged. "It's kinda nerdy of you, you know," he joked.

"I'm a studious bookworm. Do you expect me to be something different?" Rory said.

Jess put his hands up. "Hey, just observing. Don't get offended or something. I'm just saying, it's . . . commendable."

Rory looked up. "Wait," she said in disbelief, "what did you say?"

Jess sighed, looked away, like he didn't want to repeat himself. "All I'm saying is, to challenge your own abilities, to strive like that, and try to write fifty-thousand words, without any promise of fame or success or even of actually finishing, with nothing as a reward except your own personal sense of satisfaction, for the sake of writing," he shrugged, "that's commendable."

"You . . . like the idea?" Rory wondered.

"Sure I do."

"Then why don't you do it, too?" Rory asked.

Jess should've seen this question coming from a mile away. He stood up. "No, not me."

"Jess—" Rory said—

—the diner's bell rang as the door slammed shut.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	5. November 5th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

When Rory came into Luke's Diner Tuesday afternoon, she made a point of looking like a civilian. Her Chilton uniform was in the wash and all her textbooks stacked neatly in her room. All she bore with her was her heaviest jacket and laptop in its blue traveling sleeve.

Luke noticed the curlicue writing on the corner of the laptop sleeve. "'More coffee, please,'" he read. "I can take a hint. Coming right up. Anything else?"

Rory shook her head as she leaned against the counter. Her head turned left and right, trying to see through the wall into the kitchen, or up the stairs.

Luke could read her face. "He's not here," he said, pouring her coffee out.

"What?" Rory said, breaking her reverie to stare at him.

"Jess. He's not here in the diner. He's upstairs, working on homework or something. I don't know what these days," Luke said, shaking his head. "He was on the computer before even _I_ got up, making me wonder if he even went to bed last night, and went straight to it the moment he came back from school. I'm hoping it's homework or some kind of school project, at least, not something else that'd keep him busy on the computer, if you know what I mean." He got an idea. "Say, has Lane mentioned some kind of important homework or school project they're doing over there at the high school?"

"You know, Luke, you _could_ get a straight answer if you just asked him straight about what he's doing," Rory said, pulling out a couple of bucks from her jacket pocket and securing the lid on her coffee.

"No, see, I've tried that already. He's like a master boxer in the ring, always dodging punches and always laying questions on me _I_ don't know how to answer. He always skirts around the answer and turns to an unassuming browser any time I look over his shoulder."

"Check his Internet history?" Rory offered, slurping her coffee.

"Tried it. All I found was something called 'nanowreemo' or something? Didn't you mention something like that?" Luke wondered desperately.

Rory's ears perked up. "Oh! Oh! Oh! I know what he's doing!" she crowed.

"Oh, good. Is it something weird? Or dirty? Or both?" Luke asked awkwardly.

"It's, um . . . it's weird, it's definitely weird, but in like a nerdy slash geeky kind of way. He's doing NaNoWriMo! He's writing a book!"

Luke's shoulders stopped slumping. Relief relaxed him. "Oh. He's just . . ." His voice changed to incredulous. "He's writing a book?"

"Yes! My gosh, that's what he _has_ to be doing! Yesterday, when he brought me my order, I told him he should try writing a book. He walked out before I could say anything else, though. He must be doing it to spite me!" Rory grinned.

"He's . . . writing a book, to spite you?" Luke wasn't quite following.

"Well, he said 'No, not me' when I said he should do it, and I just kinda thought that he thought that I thought that he couldn't do it, so to prove me wrong, he's doing it. He's probably going to try to catch up to me today. The goal is to get to eight thousand, three hundred and thirty-five words. I bet you he'll be back down just as soon as he's done that." Rory's smile glowed.

Luke still didn't get it all, but as long as Rory didn't see it as a bad thing, he'd take that answer any day of the week. "Huh. Okay. Do you wanna, um, go join him upstairs? Just to like, write, is all. Sort of give each other solidarity and motivation and, you know, stuff?" Luke shrugged, wishing he hadn't even started that sentence.

Rory looked at the entrance to the second story and shook her head. "No, I don't think I should. I was going to go to the bookshop and meet Dean over there. . ."

"Oh, yeah, Dean," Luke said, like he'd completely forgotten about _Rory's boyfriend_. She sighed, feeling a certain empathy with Luke. Sometimes she forgot about Dean, her boyfriend, too. "Well, do you want me to let Jess know you stopped by? Maybe meet up here in the dining room to write or something?"

"No to letting him know I was here, yes to meeting up with him at some point to discuss novels. I'll take the initiative on that last one," Rory said, walking backwards toward the door.

"Sounds good." Luke waved goodbye and Rory did the same as she did a 180 around the door. She sucked in a breath as a cold Connecticut wind blew into her and hurried down the sidewalk toward the bookshop.

The little bell rang and she nodded her head and lifted her coffee cup in greeting to Andrew, who only gave her a second's greeting before returning to his engrossing novel. She inhaled the deep scent of books, books, books, a smell always soft and familiar and comforting and _homelike_ to her. She carefully walked through every aisle, running her fingers across the spines, pulling some out just to see if the tops of their pages were yellowed with age or white off the press or gold.

She eventually sat down cross-legged in one of the back corners. It was a spot she usually claimed when she and Lane had their whispering sessions. She sat back against a solid bookshelf, took a deep draught of coffee, and then set to work. She wrote with several key points of motivation. She wrote so that she'd have a book just like one of these friendly neighbors towering high above her. She wrote to get to her daily goal so that at the end of November she would cross the finish-line of NaNoWriMo a winner. She wrote because so many others wrote, and she wanted to be all like her author heroes, and wanted her characters to live their stories and live their lives and be themselves just like so many other literary characters that she'd come to regard as close friends, fictional as they were. She wrote so she could get all the words bubbling at her fingertips out of her and out onto the page. She wrote so that when Dean found her after his Doose's Market shift, she could give him her whole and undivided attention. She knew that if she had even just a dozen words left to write to meet her daily quota, her eyes would flicker away from his face and fall back onto her laptop. Her focus would certainly drift away from it and anchor onto the novel before her. Dean was her boyfriend, and deserved her undivided attention. He most certainly did! And she was going to be a better girlfriend than she had been for the past couple of weeks and would catch up with him!

She'd just finished writing her eight-thousandth-three-hundred-and-thirty-fifth word and drained the last of her Luke's coffee when the little bell on the door rang and she heard heavy footsteps. She heard Dean quietly ask Andrew Rory was. She waved her arm in lieu of lighting a signal flare and brought him over to her little corner. He looked down at her, all tall and lean and wearing his winter jacket, his Doose's apron hanging limply from his hand. He looked down at her, wearing a scarlet sweater, with her hair pulled back and her laptop sitting, closed, on her crossed-legs, which was hard to do in her tight jeans.

She beamed up at him and he said, "Hey, Rory."

"Hey, Dean." She patted the floor next to her. "I saved you a seat."

He watched her remove the cup clearly marked Luke's to her other side before he sighed and sat down. He stretched out his long legs the best he could and nodding to her laptop, said, "What'cha working on?"

"Remember that novel thing I was going to do that I told you about on Saturday? I'm doing it, or was doing it, right before you came in."

"Oh. What's it about?"

"Well, it's about this girl named Thalia Hilliard, and she lives in New York City. It's cool, but what she really likes is drinking hot tea with her cats and listening to her old grandmother tell her stories. Her grandmother's lived this really cool traveler's life, having all kinds of adventures and meeting different people with such rich backstories, with it all coming down to her marrying a Romanian actor and settling down in New York. After her grandmother dies, Thalia decides to go and meet all these people her grandmother's made friends with over the course of her life. Right now Thalia's aboard a barge with her traveling companion sailing down the Amazon, searching for a dude who's relocated to this really remote island—"

"That sounds . . . really great, and all, Rory, but if you don't mind, I kinda don't want to hear any more about it. It's just . . . I'm tired, I'm working a really long shift at Doose's—" Dean glanced at his watch. "Actually, I'm on my break right night. I gotta be back in ten minutes. Then I'll finish my shift, go home, eat dinner, do homework, go to sleep, then get up and do it all over again."

"Oh," Rory said. That was all she could say. Well, besides "If you were so busy, then you didn't have to meet up with me." Then she decided that was ungrateful and mean of her, and she laid her head against his shoulder and said, "Thanks for coming down to see me, anyways."

He smiled ruefully and leaned against her head.

When he got up to go back to work, her goodbye was half-hearted, and she was mad at herself for feeling a little glad that he'd left.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	6. November 6th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

Rory hurried home. It'd been a busy 'Hump Day' as the usually elegant Paris had bluntly called it. There were two pop quizzes and an exciting lab. It was the day after Paris's impromptu 'coffee date' (Rory's quotes, not Paris's— _she_ almost called it a 'business meeting') with Jamie the college student; the 'business meeting' resulted in a calm, nice Paris, who, softened by a dude's real interest in her, now generally found the world—for the moment, in her after-date glow—pleasant and agreeable. Any questions or favors or requests put to her were instantly granted. Louise and Madeline eagerly found weekend dates and Rory got the extra production meeting for the seventy-fifth issue of the _Franklin_ put off until next Saturday.

Rory felt relieved that she got _that_ almost impossible piece of business taken care of. It really was _Hump_ Day. She got off the bus and hurried straight home—to her actual home, not Luke's diner. While she burned with curiosity about what Jess could've possibly found to write a _book_ about, she didn't have the time or energy to devote to him today. Lane had frantically paged her this morning, begging her to let tonight be a night for her to use the Gilmore landline to repeatedly drop calls on her crush. Rory combined that excellent idea that she wholly supported with inviting Dean over for pizza. She wanted to hang out with him after yesterday's hot potato event.

Lane was already sitting on the Gilmore front porch steps. She jumped to her feet as Rory came running over. "Rory! I haven't seen you in forever! Where have you been? Has Chilton been holding you in their cells for more than eight hours? Have you been living with your grandparents in Hartford? Are you living a double secret life that neither I or your mom know about?"

"Does my best friend have a flare for the dramatic?" Rory accused with a smile, hugging Lane fiercely.

"Oh, you know I do," Lane said seriously as they pulled apart.

"Well, I've been busy. And I'm guessing that somehow you haven't been under constant house arrest by your mom?" Rory poked fun as she brought out her key and let them in.

"If you're asking if Mom found out about me sneaking out for Halloween, the answer is technically 'no'. Believe me, _I would know_ if Mom had found out about Halloween because then that would be all I'd hear about for a month, and yes, I _would_ be under house arrest and wouldn't be standing before you, living and breathing, as I am today," Lane said.

They dropped their backpacks ontp the kitchen table and Rory poured herself some cold coffee leftover from that morning. She stuck her mug in the microwave and said, "Can I get you anything? Coffee, water, Coke?"

"Coke, Coke, _please_ give me Coke. I'm on one of my junk food craving binges. Sometimes the tofu and faux eggs aren't doing it enough for me."

Rory grabbed a can from the fridge and handed Lane a straw sympathetically. "Your Halloween candy stash isn't enough?"

"You know Mom thinks that all junk food is unhealthy and a temptation from the devil. You know that all my stash fits into the heel of an old sock. Still, I've been getting my fix by having one candy a day." Lane snapped open her soda and took a sip from the straw, sighing contentedly as she sat back in her chair. "It gives me such a rebellious thrill!"

"You're really living it up, Lane," Rory said sincerely as she stepped into her room, half closed the door, and took off her school uniform so she could put on her regular Rory clothes.

"I know. Really, it's shameful. Oh, I'm so excited for tonight! Pizza—one of the worst sins, according to my mother—and calling Dave's house! Imagine, the _thrill_ of getting to call his house and let the phone ring! I can't think of anything else in this world more thrilling."

Rory came out in a grey sweater and black jeans. She pulled out her coffee and cradled it in her hands as she leaned against the back of the stove. "Boy, Lane, wait until you actually start dating! You ain't seen _nothing_ yet!"

"Oh, stop making fun of me. You know I live for the other things regular people living normal lives take for granted," Lane said dismissively.

"You know I tease! It's part of my job as official best friend—to tease you mercilessly about your crush while making up for hurt feelings with plenty of cheese pizza."

Lane frowned. "Hmmm, no, better make mine pepperoni. More grease equals more rebellion."

"I will make a note," said Rory.

"So," Lane said, "flipping the conversation onto you—how are Rory and Dean doing?"

Rory shrugged a little, looked down into her coffee. "We're doing . . . okay."

"'Okay?' Just—just 'okay'? You guys can't be just 'okay'. Until I'm officially dating somebody—which will happen, you know, never—, I _have_ to live vicariously through you, Rory, and so when you and Dean aren't doing 'okay', _I'm_ not doing 'okay'."

"I-I can't help it, Lane. Sometimes it feels like I can't do anything about it and then other times it feels like it's all on _me_ to fix us. But it can't just be _me_ fixing us, it has to be both of us fixing us, unless the problem isn't with _us_ but just with _me_. Am I the problem with us, Lane?"

"Us here being you and Dean?" Lane cocked her head. "Not the whole problem. It's a both of you type thing."

"What do you mean, 'not the whole problem'? So I'm part of the problem?"

"Well, we know for certain that it's not all just Dean. It's both of you."

Rory put down her coffee and folded her arms and said nervously, looking at the ground, "From an outsider's point of view, but also from a tender loving best friend who doesn't like to hurt feelings point of view, what is our problem, or problems?"

"Are you looking to get ripped into or not?"

 _"Lane."_

"Just asking. So, let's start with Dean. He just seems generally disinterested in your relationship as a whole," Lane put a finger up, "don't do the pouty lips thing. Don't do it. Okay. So, this is your second time around as a couple. The last time, you guys broke up because you couldn't say 'I love you' back to him, which was totally fine and reasonable of you at the time because it was true—so this time around, I think he's putting in less effort because he's expecting you to put in _more_ effort this time."

"So because I should love him more this time around, he's putting in less effort to love me? That doesn't make any sense!" Rory declared.

"I think _he_ thinks he put in so much effort the last time and last time all that effort didn't get reciprocated, so I think he's playing his cards much closer to his chest this time around. I think last time he put so much of his heart into your relationship, and that backfired on him. He doesn't want to make the same mistake twice."

"So he thinks I'm going to backfire on him?"

"Yes."

"Why would he think that?" Rory wondered.

Lane looked at her friend deadpan. "It's obvious _why_ , Rory, and this is where you as part of the problem comes into play."

Rory got out a carton of ice cream and sat down; personal criticism from your honest best friend was easier to handle with a spoon in your hand and ice cream in your belly.

"You have the inevitable hots for Jess." Lane pointed a finger at Rory just as she opened her mouth. "And don't deny it. We all know it. Everyone in town can see that. Even you and Jess can see it. And so, unfortunately, does Dean. And he doesn't like it. And he probably feels like there's nothing he can do about it."

Rory, completely uncharacteristically, couldn't find a single word to say. She couldn't find anything to say to Lane, to retaliate, to say that that wasn't true, that it might look like that but really wasn't like that at all. She couldn't find any motivation within her to find words that would just prove untrue. She knew if she sat down at her laptop and stared at her NaNoWriMo story, she wouldn't be able to put down a single word there, either.

So she sat there and poked her spoon at her chocolate peanut butter ice cream.

Lane stood up and put a hand on Rory's shoulder. She knew she'd been hard-hitting. That's what best friends do: they call you out and then they help you get back up. "So, what are you going to do?" Lane wondered.

Rory thought. She looked at her laptop peeking out of her backpack. It contained her novel, her writing, one of many interests that disconnected her from Dean and brought her closer to Jess. She knew she had to be a better girlfriend to Dean and that she was their main problem, her and her stupid heart. She knew that in order to stay close to Dean and to keep their relationship afloat, she'd have to stay as far away from Jess as possible. Far away from Jess, and novels, and books, and words, and NaNoWriMo.

"I think right now I am going to call Mom and Dean and figure out what kinds of pizzas they want me to order. Also, I think a nice night in with my mom, best friend, boyfriend, and pizza are in order."

Lane smiled. Rory smiled, too. Yes, she convinced herself, just a night in with her mom, best friend, boyfriend, pizza—

And no NaNoWriMo.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	7. November 7th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Little Women. Now is the part where I set up Rory and Jess being annoyed at each other at the 24-hr dance marathon.**

Rory resisted the huge craving engulfing her mind of a piece of Luke's spiced apple pie as she walked home. The only way to avoid Jess right now was to stay far away from Luke's Diner. Easier said than done, of course. Especially when spiced apple pie and constant coffee are sacrificed.

She arrived home from school and sat on her front porch steps, feeling like a kid again. Her long spindly legs made her feel like a spider as she crunched on an apple and typed on her laptop. She'd returned to NaNoWriMo last night, despite her inward vow. Rory had this kind of personal thing where she always, always, _always_ put in 110% on all writing assignments, whether they be essays, book reports, finals papers, or self-motivated Internet writing competitions. So, once the pizza boxes were dumped into the recycling and Dean dutifully kissed goodnight, Rory turned off the porchlight and ran to her room and brought out her laptop. She could only write two hundred words before her mom popped her head in, wondering how a really little and insignificant, quick movie marathon would sound?

Rory pulled reluctantly away from her writing then, but she threw herself in full throttle now. She felt like Jo March as she chomped away on several ruddy red apples (the only fruit her mom kept in the house, as per their general Gilmore lifestyle) and, without looking, threw the apple cores without much thought in an over-hand across the front yard.

"Hey, sugar! You 'bout knocked me clean over with that last one! Ever think about joining a softball team?" Rory looked up, startled, when she heard this. She peered past her open laptop down to the edge of her front yard. Babette and Morey stood just by their mailbox, having ambled along the sidewalk in a pleasant afternoon walk and picking up their mail while they were at it. They probably didn't come outside to stand in as baseball mitts.

"Oh! I'm so sorry! I-I didn't realize I was throwing that far!"

"Oh, it's no harm done, hon! Just be careful where you're aimin'!" Babette shrilly called.

"You take softball, Rory?" Morey calmly called.

"I do some at my school, yes," Rory said.

Babette, mail tucked under her arm, walked up to the Gilmore front stoop. Wheezing from her quick walk, she said, "Whatcha workin' on so hard that you can't pop your eyes up now and then?"

"Oh, it's just some project I'm working on," Rory dismissed breezily, not wanting to get into novel-writing with Babette.

"It is for school? Or is it—I heard from Luke that you're writing a novel. Say, is that true?"

"It's, um . . ." Rory bit her lip but nodded. "Yeah, it's true. I'm writing a book."

"Oh, well, that's fantastic! I would love to read it. What's it about? The people in this town? 'Cause if you need some back stories, or even just some stories, you just come to my front door, sugar—I could tell you some hair-raisin' tales you almost couldn't believe, except they're all true!" Babette looked to her husband, who nodded and said, "True, every last one of them."

"Oh, thank you. I will definitely let you know . . . if I need some inspiration," was Rory's lame way of saying, 'I actually don't want to add any of your stories to my story because your stories are about real people who I like and who will probably read this book and say "Hey, that happened to me! She made me a character!" and I don't want to make anyone in Stars Hollow a character in my book because that isn't creative, writing real life verbatim into your own fictional setting; assertion is just lazy writing that's not creative and also not a good way to write overall.' Rory, of course, just sidestepped around this obvious and kinda mean-hearted but blunt and truthful revelation by being completely vague instead.

"You betcha, honey! Sometime come over next door. I'll stoke up the fire and some of my famous punch and we'll get down into the nitty gritty thrillers we got hiding under our town floorboards! Whooo!" Babette said. She breathed in deep and said, "Well, Morey and I gotta be heading back. I got a roast in the oven that needs me to not forget about it." She almost stepped away, to Rory's relief, but then she turned back around and said, "Say, Rory, in this book of yours, are you making anyone here from Stars Hollow into characters? Are any of us going to be in your book?"

"Um, no, it's more of an original thing. The main character is more, um, worldly, and enjoys other cultures," Rory said, lamely, but as the best she could.

"She enjoys other cultures, huh? Has she ever had any of Al's takeout? That'll make her stick to diner grub!" Babette chuckled, elbowing Morey, who merely smiled. "Well, I hope it turns out great, just like you want it, Rory. I'll get to read it with it's done, right?"

"Um," Rory said, short-circuiting. It was nice to just let people know you were writing a novel; to talk about a novel and let them actually read the novel were two entirely different things. One you could do easily; the other, you were reluctant to do. She was just going to save the book on her computer and let select persons read it. You know, Mom, Grandpa and Grandma, Luke if he wanted to; Paris, to have something to show for all her hurrying home and snatched moments on her laptop during their _Franklin_ production meetings; Jess. . .

It was just that it'd be an awful shame for the person she'd talked to the most about her novel not to read it.

She'd let him read it, right? It was a literary thing, not a personal, I want you to read this because it's my work, kind of thing.

"I bet cha have to go through a lot of drafts and editing, don't cha?" Babette continued, dismissing Rory's silence.

"Oh, definitely. It takes a lot to put out a book in this world," Morey pointed out.

Rory snapped her fingers. "Yes. Yes! Totally true! Really, this will just be a big ol' rough draft."

"When you got it in a paperback, stick one in my mailbox, and I swear I'll read the whole thing through in one sitting. Got it?" Babette promised.

"Got it," Rory said, smiling, relieved.

"Good, good. All right, my pot roast is burning. Let's get a move on outta here, Morey. Bye, sweetheart!" Babette said, waving to Rory as Morey led the way through the front yards to their front door.

"Bye, Babette! Bye, Morey!" Rory watched her two neighbors match pace and hold hands as they walked together. She wondered if they'd traveled at all; if they ever felt a great need to travel the world, explore new places, and walk on different continents. Maybe they did. But maybe they were just content to be holding hands together as they walked through their needed-to-be-trimmed, leaf-bedecked, very domestic front yard, in a small town, in a small, one of many, United States.

Rory thought there was great beauty in traveling the world, living in old places a dozen different cultures lived in over the course of thousands of years. To see old well-known landmarks in person, pieces of history that'd survived to present day. She also knew there was a great beauty in _home_. In small town Americas full of autumn leaves, nosy, cheerful, well-meaning neighbors, and lots of apples to chomp on a quiet afternoon.

She stopped writing for a while and just sat with her elbows on her knees, looking out into Stars Hollow. In her novel, she was concerned about the tropical jungles of South America, of St. Croix and Caribbean islands. She became so lost in the intense romance of such an adventure that it startled her to jolt out of that world into the welcoming, familiar world around her.

When Lorelai came home with a paper bag of groceries from Doose's, she stopped and stared at her daughter on her front porch. Then she followed the decomposing Hansel and Gretel trail into her front yard. "What's with all the fresh compost? Were you trying to hit a runaway squirrel and kept missing or something?" Lorelai said, shouldering the bag as she interrupted her daughter's author's reverie.

"Mom, why do I write about places I've never been to that I don't know a whole lot about?" Rory wanted to know.

"Whoa, totally not the answer I was looking for. Um, because you have imagination, that's why," Lorelai said.

"But what if I write something completely wrong? What if there's some social custom I just don't know about that's integral to the everyday life of a country? What if—what if in Austria turning down a cup of coffee is considered like, offensive behavior or something?" Rory rabbled.

"That's situation should never arise because you _love_ coffee," Lorelai quipped. Then she sobered up. "Kid, it's okay if you get things wrong. That's why there are other books for research. You've got the whole world wide web at your fingertips. Heck, you're the most well-read person I know. If there's some stupid social custom only the locals know about, _you_ will know it."

Rory considered this for a moment. Then she asked, "Do you think I should write about things more like Stars Hollow? Stuff I know really well?"

"Would you be challenging yourself if you did?" Lorelai mounted the steps. Then she said, "There's enough time in the world for you to write _two_ books." Then she smiled and disappeared inside.

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	8. November 8th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

"Remember, don't bring up your book-writing at dinner, okay?" Lorelai instructed Rory after she rung her parents' doorbell.

"Why not? I thought you liked ready-made conversations for the inevitable lulls?" Rory said.

" _I_ thought you didn't want to get grilled by your grandparents. But, by all means, let them grill you." Lorelai danced, grinning. "I'm so ready for the dance marathon tomorrow! Are you?"

"I'll let you know my answer tomorrow morning at five-thirty," Rory said.

"Five-thirty! Whoa-ho, that's _wayyyyy_ too late, Rory. You gotta get up at four-thirty, five at the _latest_."

"Five at the latest?" Rory said in a whimper-y voice. "I thought all we had to do was get dressed, eat breakfast, drink coffee, and be at Miss Patty's by five-forty-five."

"You thought wrong, my poor deceived, innocent child. We have to be at Miss Patty's by five- _thirty_ in case of long lines that also leaves us time to socialize pre-dancing. The hour beforehand will consist of getting coffee, eating something that doesn't sit like lead in our stomachs, and putting on our makeup."

"Putting on our makeup? At five in the morning? How important is that again?" Rory moaned.

"Ohhhhh, _very_. I want to look impeccable as I run victory laps all around Kirk and his stupid, dumbstruck face."

"You won't look very impeccable after twenty-four hours of straight dancing," Rory pointed out wearily.

"But my hair will look so stylish! Besides, it's old-fashion themed, and if we don't look old-fashioned while everybody else does, we'll be judged by every spectator in the stands. Do you really want your boyfriend in the stands watching his girlfriend dance with her mother, sighing and wishing that they looked as fabulously dressed as all the other couples?"

" _Fine._ I concede to makeup and hair. As long we get coffee before we leave the house."

"Coffee is first-priority. If we don't get coffee at home, we'll beg Luke on hands and knees for some."

"How will we not first get coffee at home if coffee is first-priority?"

"It tied with impeccable makeup for first-priority."

"How did coffee tie with makeup? You won't think makeup ranks so high as first-priority at five AM tomorrow!"

Lorelai thumped the doorbell again. "Either Mom's fired all the maids the agency's offered her or she's got the worst one. It's freezing out here."

"Not without any lack of conversation."

"See? You have great conversational skills without talking about your novel. As a matter of fact, I think you can avoid the subject completely."

"Mom—" Rory said just as a maid opened the front door. She bobbed and took their coats.

Emily came hurrying over. "Yes, thank you, Liliana—go finish making the salad. Remember, I said no walnuts!" Emily waved her away and shook her head. "She never listens to me. I swear, everything I say goes in one ear and out the other."

"I can confirm that fact," Lorelai said.

Emily gave her a look and she waved and said, "Hi, Mom."

"Hi, Lorelai." Emily smiled. "Rory! How are you?" She hugged her granddaughter and led them all to the living room for drinks.

"What smells so good tonight, Mom? I hope it's spaghetti. We need to carb up for our dance marathon tomorrow, like runners do before real marathons," Lorelai said, as Emily prepared her a martini.

"Mom just likes any excuse to load up on spaghetti," Rory said, accepting a coke.

"Oh, you know I do. I didn't eat lunch in preparation. I've got all engines ready for carb overload," Lorelai said.

"Well, we _are_ having spaghetti (if Liliana remembered that I put it on the menu) but in the meantime, there'll be Waldorf salad and sand dab as first courses." Emily took her seat.

"If only Liliana will remember to not add walnuts, we will be in tip-top shape," Richard said, emerging from his office. "Lorelai, Rory." He accepted a hug from his granddaughter and a wave from his daughter.

"Wait, what's sand dab? It sounds like gravel and earth," Lorelai said.

"I think it's some kind of new dance move," Rory said. "The kids these days are always coming up with something new."

Lorelai pointed a finger at her. "You know, that's true."

"Honestly, the two of you. Sand dab is just a kind of fish, that's _it_. It isn't a dance move, and I'm certainly not going to force either of you to eat _sand_ ," Emily scoffed.

"Oh, thank God. I, for one," Lorelai said, hand at her chest, "was worried."

After waiting forty some-odd minutes for walnut-less salad, the Gilmores settled down at the dining room table to eat sand dab. Lorelai ate the entire plate in about six bites, so great was her hunger. Emily, Richard, and even Rory stopped their own polite eating to stare at Lorelai as she swallowed her chipmunk cheeks and wiped her mouth neatly with her cloth napkin.

"Where's the fire, Lorelai?" Emily asked.

"Nowhere. Just really, really hungry. Gotta bulk up for our twenty-four hours of dancing." Lorelai clapped her hands at Rory. "Keep at it, kid! That's energy you're storing away!"

"You know what, I'm not even going to ask," Richard said calmly. He shared a wink with Rory, who smiled back. In the kitchen, waiting for the walnut-less salad, she'd agreed on a family road trip with him, Grandma, and her mom to Yale University next week. She couldn't wait to have her mom know about it, to get it over with.

It was quiet for a moment or two. Lorelai waited impatiently for the spaghetti course, which couldn't be brought out until her dinner companions had eaten all they wanted of the sand dab. And her parents were pretty slow eaters to begin with! Lorelai sighed, and, tired of staring at everyone chewing, finally blurted out, "So, Rory's writing a book."

Emily and Richard looked at their granddaughter in pleasant surprise, their interests clearly piqued. Rory gave her mom a look—for all the warnings against telling Grandpa and Grandma, you never would have thought that _this_ Lorelai Gilmore would've let the cat out of the bag.

"A book? Really? What about?" Richard wondered.

Rory swallowed her food. "It's about this girl who travels the world in search of answers about her grandmother and about herself."

"Sounds like a movie made in 1999," Lorelai joked.

"Oh, no, that sounds like a fine, fine plot to start out with. You'll flesh it out in the course of the novel, of course?" Richard said, cutting up his sand dab while retaining a presence in the conversation.

"Oh, definitely. It's going to be at least fifty-thousand words long," Rory said.

"How far are you into it, Rory?" Emily wondered.

"About eleven-thousand words. I've been trying to work on it every day."

"I'm glad to hear it. Chiseling bit by bit, every single day, will give you a finished piece that you're proud of," Richard said. "Often these things take time and patience, and hard work. You're undoubtedly giving your book all of that."

"I will. Though, not tonight. I gotta go to sleep early, 'cause of the marathon. Not tomorrow, either. Maybe not Sunday, either. Depends on how tired I am." Rory shrugged.

"You'll catch back up to your normal pace," Richard assured her.

"Do you have a name for your novel yet?" Emily wondered. "Oh, I bet it's something exciting, like _Wanderlust_ or something."

"I haven't named it yet, though that's not a bad name. I'll keep that in mind, Grandma," Rory said sincerely.

"You should name it _Corrective Lenses_ , in honor of how writing this novel on your laptop's going to force you to get glasses," Lorelai joked.

"What a thing to joke about, Lorelai," Emily said disapprovingly.

"You're writing this on your laptop, Rory? Why that as opposed to a typewriter?" Richard asked.

"Um, my laptop tells me my word count, and has a backspace button, and—oh! We don't have a typewriter," Rory quickly added.

"You could've led with the last one and not say the entire first part of that sentence altogether, as a time-saver, Rory." Lorelai stopped and looked at her father putting his fork down. "Dad, no, keep eating! The sooner you eat, the sooner _I_ eat!"

"Lorelai, do you want to go get some more sand dab from the kitchen?" Emily finally said, annoyed. "I highly doubt Liliana will know what you're talking about if you ask her to bring you some but feel free to go and get some from the kitchen."

"My heart's set on spaghetti, but my stomach overrules my heart." Lorelai grabbed her plate and rushed into the kitchen.

"My, but she says the strangest things sometimes," Emily observed.

"Are you just now noticing this?" Richard asked.

Emily scoffed.

Richard then turned to Rory. "This will look wonderful on your college application. A novel! It shows writing ability and self-motivation in literary pursuits."

"Grandpa, I already submitted my college application. To Harvard." Rory didn't like where her grandfather was going with this.

"Yes, you've already submitted your application to Harvard, but if you ever submit one to another Ivy League college, it will _shine_ on it," Richard said pleasantly.

Rory didn't know what to say, but Richard had the tact to not say another word (Emily the same) when Lorelai came hurrying in, a big grin on her face. Instead of holding her dinner plate with some sand dab on it, she'd brought in the entire platter. She set it down at her spot, to her mother's mortification.

"Lorelai, do you starve yourself before you come here, or is the sand dab _that_ delicious?" Emily wanted to know.

"It's _that_ delicious to my hungry, demanding stomach." Lorelai shoved some onto Rory's plate. "You're not getting spaghetti anytime soon. Bulk up."

Rory accepted the fish, and ate it until spaghetti was called for. She was glad no more conversation centered around her book—or around Yale.

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	9. November 9th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Cinderella.**

Today was the day— _the **day**_. The day Lorelai looked forward to all year, almost more than Christmas. It was the day of the Annual 24-Hour Dance Marathon. She was so full of shakes and jitters; she couldn't wait to rock it out on the dance floor, proving herself full of endurance and incredible dance moves and snatching victory away from a bumbling Kirk!

She hummed an old dance tune her parents used to play when she was young as she bobbed around the kitchen, putting on her new vintage heels. It was just after five but she had some kind of adrenaline shot of energy from waking up in excitement; she knew she'd come back to Earth after a little while and have to drink some coffee just so she could stand up, but until her energy gave out, she practiced her wide waltzes and pointed her toes likes a ballerina all around the kitchen.

"Rory! Hey, kid, we gotta head out soon! Aren't you excited?" Lorelai knocked on her kid's door, waited two seconds, then peeked inside; she was full of impatience; she couldn't _possibly_ be expected to have patience today, not on the day of the start of the 24-hr Dance Marathon!

Lorelai's face fell; her kid wasn't ready! What—what about dressing up all old-fashioned and vintage and being ready on time?! Rory sat in her computer chair, her fingers slowly, slowly, _slowly_ tapping over the keys. It was almost like her body was slow and unresponsive, and the only way she got any writing done was by mind over matter. Her eyes were glazed over, her back slumped. She wore the chosen red dress Lorelai had laid on the back of the chair for her the night before—but her hair! Her hair wasn't done! Horror upon horror!

"Rory, kid, what are you doing?! We have to be at Miss Patty's in like, half an hour. And we're walking because we're not going to find any parking over there. You have to do your makeup, your hair, get your shoes on! What are you doing?"

"NaNoWriMo," Rory said in a tired, very small voice.

"What? You're writing your book? It's five in the morning and we have to be somewhere!"

"I have plenty of time to get ready. This _needs_ to get done. I don't want to—to—" Rory stopped to yawn. She was too tired to put her hands to her mouth, so she looked like a young lion trying to roar. She resumed. "I don't want to fall behind. I want to get as far as I can until I can't."

"That's a _great_ mentality, kid. But can we apply it to the dance marathon that's happening in, hey, an hour?"

"I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

"You have to be ready _now_. Remember? Five-thirty has us at the steps of Miss Patty. We need to be out the door _now_."

"It's two hours earlier than regular mornings, and yet you never show the same kind of initiative."

"That's 'cause regular mornings involve going to Inn shifts, not to go rub well-earned victory into Kirk's face!"

"This competition has really highlighted just how big of a sadistic streak you have in you."

"Thanks for noticing. Can we go now?"

"Just . . . one more . . . sentence." It was silent for a moment as Rory carefully, very, _very_ slowly—slow motion to Lorelai—wrote a sentence.

Lorelai saw her hit the period key enough times to verify that she'd _definitely_ written a sentence and said, "Okay, that's it. I'm pulling out my mom override." She closed Rory's laptop and put it on the desk.

Rory was so tired and slow that it took her a second to realize that her laptop was gone, then another second to find it, then another second to look at her mom with horror. "What's your mom override?"

"It's when I enforce rules because I am your mother. You know, when I actually override your teenage-ness by not being your friend but the woman who gave birth to you. I don't often use this override, and may I never be accused of abusing it, but when I do, you better pay attention. Now, Rory," Lorelai grabbed the armrests of Rory's swivel chair and said seriously, "I want you to put on some mascara and lipstick, pull your hair into a braid, and stick on some shoes. Flats, boots, heels, I don't care. Please, just be ready in five minutes. For Mommy, okay?"

"Okay," Rory said dully.

Lorelai patted her on her cheek. "Oh, baby. You _really do_ need coffee."

"I do, I do, I _do_ ," Rory said. She slumped in her swivel chair and moaned. "How can I do a dance marathon if it costs almost all my energy just to move my fingers?"

"You'll have me supporting you, and coffee—your two constant, most beloved companions," Lorelai said encouragingly as she pulled Rory up to her feet, brightly smiling.

"Do you have coffee ready? 'No' is not an acceptable answer, by the way," Rory said, stumbling to her feet.

"Um, no, actually. Makeup takes a while; also, I changed my outfit about five or six times. I didn't have you to be my voice of reason. But look," Lorelai swished her hips and grinned, which her groaning kid didn't appreciate, "I finally picked out an outfit and it's like, you know, the best ever!"

"I should've helped you pick out an outfit. I take ownership of that mistake. If I had, we would've stopped at maybe three outfits, and then we would have had time to make coffee. Seriously, how—how did coffee rank below makeup? Who are you, and where is my mother?" Rory groaned, raising and dropping her hands as she stood in front of her mirror. She grabbed her hair and brushed it out roughly and haphazardly braided it.

"Yes! Yes! Take responsibility for your mistakes! It makes me feel better about mine, knowing they're all your fault." Lorelai grinned when Rory glared at her and considered throwing her hairbrush at her.

Lorelai sat on Rory's bed, considering the three or four pairs of shoes on the table while Rory tried to not scratch her eyes out with her mascara brush. "You know what? These look good." Lorelai gave Rory her shoes; the kid looked like her mother as she leaned over, one hand on the dresser, the other sticking the shoes clumsily onto her feet. "You ready, Cinderella? Ready to dance and stamp out all hope in your ugly stepsisters' hearts?" Lorelai grinned.

"That's a horrible analogy, 'cause it makes Cinderella cruel-hearted, which she's not; and also, Kirk's my ugly stepsister? That's really out of left field. That's a super weird plot twist. And you're a little too excited about this. Are you sure you don't have some reserve of coffee that you're holding out on me?"

Lorelai gasped, hand to heart. "Rory, I'm not _that_ cruel. Really!"

"You're cruel enough to make me get up at the butt crack of dawn and expect me to not only stay awake for the next twenty-four plus hours, but _dance_ for twenty-four of those hours, and not make _any coffee_. Really, maybe I should just stay home and write."

"You wouldn't. You're too full of loyalty; you couldn't go back on a promise if you tried!" Lorelai said victoriously.

Rory thought about this, then wrinkled her nose. "If I could, I would. Right now, I would."

"I know, kid, I know," Lorelai said cheerfully. She bounced up and grabbed Rory's hands, bouncing up and down, like she was the kid instead of the mother. "Okay, let's go!"

"Okay, I'll go. But first thing there we find is the coffeemaker. Promise?" Rory groaned.

"I promise. But remember, I don't have as much integrity as you do. I might promise something but in the end might not be able to deliver it," Lorelai warned her.

"Mom, it's too early to be joking," Rory said seriously.

"It's never too early. You know that. You know me. You've been stuck with me for—eighteen years now, right? Man, we've been roomies for like, the _longest_ time." Lorelai squeezed her daughter's shoulders as they stepped outside. "Here," Lorelai tucked Rory's head against her, "just lean against me. I'll support you know, but just so you know, I'm going to count on at least an hour or two of support from you out on that dance floor."

"That's okay. I'm going to need you for at least eight. Fair warning." Rory adjusted her head to get comfortable and closed her eyes as her mother led her down the walk.

"That's a comforting thought. Here: we'll get your blood moving, and then you'll get into the dancing spirit!"

"I could be sitting right now. I could be luxuriating in the great pastime of sitting. I could be writing right now. I could be _sleeping_. I could be sleeping in because it's a Saturday and I never get to sleep in except on weekends. I could've _done_ stuff today."

Lorelai patted Rory's head. "That's the lack of caffeine talking. You couldn't leave your poor, deserted old mom in the lurch 'cause of ol' Appleface. You're too good-hearted. You'll be yourself in an hour, once you have coffee flowing through your veins."

"Coffee flowing through my veins sounds really good to me right now. Also, that's an excellent sentence. I wish I wrote that," Rory said seriously.

Lorelai looked a little taken back. "I-I didn't _write_ that, Rory, I just said it."

"I know. But you _could've_ written it, because you thought of it. You just said it out loud instead of writing it down." Rory smiled. "I think I get my love of words from you."

Lorelai smiled. "You certainly got my sense of humor, at least."

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	10. November 10th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Rocky.**

Rory thought all the most vengeful thoughts to herself as she clung to Dean. She couldn't say a single word of these thoughts out loud, so she channeled her anger into disgusted and angry facial expressions, and threw these missiles, these glares, at Jess.

He just sat in the stands with Shane like it _wasn't_ the weirdest thing in the world. Shane groaned, sat up, laid down, walked around, bristled, and glared at him as well. But Jess didn't give her the satisfaction of reacting to her at all. Instead, he just stared, unnervingly unblinkingly, at Rory. As a challenge? To mock her? To throw her off her game? In front of her boyfriend!

Rory scoffed and turned her head away, leaning her cheek against Dean's chest. She could hear his heart and its erratic beating. She could hear him above her making noises of discontentment, then immediately smothering them to drive them from her mind. He put his chin down on her head and she sank closer into him, her sore feet barely moving.

She could feel Jess's staring eyes burning into the back of her head.

She soothed her ruffled feathers by encouraging her angry thoughts. If she didn't want her mom to win her heart's desire, she would run across that gym (in her very sore dancing feet, too—a real feat and real proof of how angry he made her) and stare him down! She'd shout him down! Her anger would propel her to say angry things she never would have said if she wasn't so tired, but in the end really meant anyway. She'd fight him! She'd shove him and tell him to screw off, find something better to do than stare at a girl dancing with her boyfriend, like some kind of creeper! She'd point a finger at the door and demand for him to leave, to go _do_ something with his life instead of laze around. Go, get a life—there's about a hundred things she could name just off the top of her head that he could do. Seriously! Go, write your novel—apparently you have the ability to do something worth your time. But like hell would Rory want to read it! And she wouldn't let him read her novel either—no, she wouldn't! Not when he mocked it—not when every time he asked about it and she told him genuinely what was happening in it, he'd just dispel it with a wave of sarcasm. Fine! Don't read it! She didn't care!

. . . would he just stop staring at her! Just leave them alone! She and Dean were together and they were dating and they were happy and Jess Mariano can't stand to see anyone else in the world happy, just because he himself never is!

Ohhhhhhh—Rory, despite how her exhaustion making every moving step a painful gesture, bristled with lit anger and growled under her breath. If only she could get off this stupid dance floor and give it to Jess Mariano!

She _felt_ Dean clear his throat under her. She knew she must be radiating two very different but distinctive moods: complete exhaustion, and complete anger. When her exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her system and let her fall in Dean's arms, slumping to the floor, she passed an eye over to Jess. Just seeing him staring at them, a couple, coolly, as if he had all the time in the world, made her straighten her shoulders and raise from the depths of exhaustion with an annoyed burning passion.

She was a fire slowly dwindling into embers; he was a poker who rustled her into flames.

Rory slept in the rest of the day, after she sobbed her heart out to her mom on the dance floor. The Rocky music played on while the townspeople milled about the gym. The topic of the hour—besides Kirk's victory, which, to be honest, only Kirk seemed to be aware of—everyone else was too tired to care all that much—was the very public breakup between Dean Forester and Rory Gilmore. It was big, abrupt, and an entire scene. The townsfolk watched in fascination as this horrible enchanting scene played out. It was almost like a play rather than two kids breaking up, one leaving with a stone heart that didn't want to get hurt anymore and one standing there, numb, until she ran out the door, her arm against her eyes.

Lorelai walked fast, despite just having danced for over twenty-three hours (not twenty-four, but at the moment, she didn't care—she forgot all about the stupid contest—her kid was sobbing; her kid was heartbroken, humiliated because of her own stupid, teenage, confused heart, in front of all their nearest friends and neighbors). She led Rory home, denying an inquiry from a worried Sookie with a wave of her hand. "I just want to get her home."

"Of course. Let me know if she needs anything," Sookie said sympathetically, watching the Gilmore Girls walk quickly home with sad, sorry eyes.

Lorelai draped Rory down on her bed. Rory sobbed against her pillow; her tears had all gone; only great heaving sobs still hooked in her chest; every time she thought she could calm down and regain some composure, she thought back to the moment where Dean called her out in front of _everyone_ and laid her heart's desires and secret inner thoughts she never gave voice to out in the open for all to survey. The town's curiosity was satisfied when she didn't deny him these truths, these truths she'd never told him but truths he knew existed nevertheless. Then she'd break into soundless, body-consuming, tearless sobs.

She wish she would keep crying. All there was was hot burning and aching behind her eyes. She begged for some relief from this horrible aching.

Lorelai looked at her daughter with deeply maternal, sorry eyes. She didn't think that such an innocent town event could spell out such disaster and heartache for her poor kid. She took off her worn shoes and pushed back Rory's hair from her eyes. She rubbed her back and picked hairpins from her fallen hairdo and gave her hugs. Rory wanted to thank her, but couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything. She was powerless, and really, _really_ tired. Curse all twenty-four hour dance marathons from here on out! That was her last one. They were forever poisoned, tainted, in her mind, forever.

After about three hours, Rory fell into a restless, unhappy sleep. It was the sleep of the exhausted, but without the sweet relief. It was angry, unsettling, demanding sleep. It asked Rory to be sad, angry, hurt, and unsettled. And Rory was still angry. She wasn't only mad at Jess for staring, though, or at Dean for being so cruel. She was mad at herself for being so stupid.

 _She_ was cruel. She'd played Dean, messing with his head and plucking on his heartstrings like he was a guitar that had to play her tunes. She'd given him hope of a real relationship with her, then openly flirted with Jess Mariano, the town reject! She'd danced in front of Jess, tantalizingly close, and then gone back to Dean, like she possessed Dean and wanted to remind Jess of his rampant heart, that he couldn't have her because she had a boyfriend. She'd played both of them, and it was all because of her stupid, confused heart that she seemed to lack the ability to control.

When she woke up, she found a coverlet pulled up to her chin. Her disheveled hair fell into her eyes as she sat up. She shielded her eyes from the piercing light streaming in through the open door. She heard her mom move around the kitchen, calling, "Rory, are you awake?"

"If I wasn't, now I would be," Rory said in a hoarse voice. Her throat ached.

"Hey, your humor's still there. That's a good sign," Lorelai said encouragingly as she took a seat next to her daughter. She rubbed her arm and said, "How are you feeling, baby?"

"Horrible. I . . . I think I'm going to feel horrible for a long time," Rory said slowly, sighing.

"I know, baby," Lorelai said, rubbing her back. "I know."

They sat there for a while. Lorelai looked around and said, "Do you want a hot cocoa? Ice cream straight from the carton, my specialty?"

Rory dully shook her head. She wore the coverlet over her shoulders like a cape, like a shield. If she sat beneath its folds, she could stay safe.

"Hmmmm," Lorelai said. While she was all for the traditional break-up mourning to purge all those horrible emotions from her system, she was also up for seeing her kid smile a little. Maybe give her a little hope, just for the day. Lorelai's eyes fell on her laptop. "Hey, maybe you could work on your novel. I bet you have plenty of energy to do it now."

"How long did I sleep?" Rory wondered absentmindedly.

"I don't know, but it's six o'clock right now. At night."

Rory's eyes flickered over to her laptop. She saw herself working on it at a table in Luke's Diner, and Jess's eyes staring her down, relentless, wondering. Alive. She could see him every time she closed her eyes. She wondered about him, and she wished she'd never see him again.

"No," Rory said slowly. She leaned against her mother's comforting shoulder. "I don't think I can."

"Okay, not right now," Lorelai said. You knew Rory was deeply affected in mind when she turned down the opportunity to _write_.

She'd have plenty of time to catch up, Lorelai knew. November had plenty more days. Plenty more days to write, but first, plenty of days to recover from her heartache.

Lorelai didn't say another word as she held her daughter.

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	11. November 11th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

Rory stood at Luke's Diner's counter, visibly shaken. It'd been a weird, really weird, tiring day. She and her mom somehow had had the will and ability to force their tired legs to Luke's Diner that morning. Cue the monosyllabic tennis match between her and Jess, her mom and Luke. She'd rushed out with the excuse of school.

All her thoughts centered on Jess on the bus ride to Chilton. She felt like a girl in a music video. She leaned against the bus's probably unhygienic window and thought about a cute boy as the bus passed through the highway towards the upper-crust part of Hartford.

She'd recovered a lot since yesterday. Maybe she hadn't been as hurt by Dean as she'd been humiliated. Her heart proved her right when it flickered over to Jess immediately, her heartbreak surely, not really slowly, on the mend.

Maybe, in her heart, she knew that she and Dean wouldn't be end-game. That Jess's invasion wouldn't be occasional, would leave a mark. Wasn't harmless.

Was it awful, this relief she felt, once she could think things through? As the pain subsided, her heart felt lighter and _eager_. When she'd last broken down over her break-up with Dean, she'd gone long and hard into it. Now, here, the morning after, she looked out the window and didn't feel pain, but saw Jess in her mind's eye. He was no longer unattainable. He wasn't a toy in a store window: there to stare at, to dream about, but not hers to touch.

It was just awkward. That was all.

She was distracted through her entire school day. Paris got into the habit of snapping her fingers in front of Rory, in an effort to stop her from staring blankly ahead. Paris also contracted a headache from rolling her eyes into the back of her head too many times.

Rory stepped off the bus and wandered into the diner. Then she panicked and ordered a cheeseburger and had another monosyllabic conversation with Jess, and went upstairs under the pretense of a book. His book? Who knew. He made it up on the spot and she caught along to his story. They were getting somewhere through this awkward stage until Luke burst into the room and put a three-foot distance between them. Rory rushed downstairs and was almost out the door when Caesar called her name. She stopped short and looked at him reluctantly. He hung out of the kitchen doorway, saying, "Rory, your burger's only gonna be another minute. Stay there until I wrap it up."

Rory wanted nothing more than to put as much space between her and Luke Danes as fast as she could, but she couldn't duck out on Caesar after he'd already fried the burger. Now she stood nervously at the counter, ready to duck or flee at the small provocation.

Luke appeared first. He exchanged a quick look with Rory; it wasn't what she'd call a 'warning' look, but, maybe a wary one? His look said 'I know what you two were planning on doing up there and while I don't trust Jess 'cause he's a hormonal teenage boy, I _do_ trust you, and while I know you're a teenage girl, at least you're one with a good head on her shoulders who's sensible. So I'm not saying that I'm warning you, but I'm also not saying that I'm not warning you. Capiche?'

Rory wordlessly nodded. Luke nodded, as if pleased, and went to take someone else's order. Rory gave Caesar the appropriate cash and waited anxiously for her change. She let the burger packed tightly in aluminum foil burn in one hand and let her other palm tremble as Caesar took his sweet, sweet time carefully counting out her change. She heard footsteps overhead and looked up for the third time that day alone to see Jess Mariano behind the counter, all stopped short and staring at her.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she said.

Luke looked up from one of the customer's tables and rolled his eyes. "If you two can't keep up something other than a conversation comprised entirely of small, common, quick little words, then I don't want to hear it. Matter of fact, _no one_ wants to hear it. Get out of here if you're going to do it." As if to make sure that they didn't get any ideas into their heads of heading back up into the solitude of the upstairs apartment again, Luke jerked a finger at the Diner's front door.

Jess said, "We can take a message, old man." He looked at Rory, and his face slightly softened. "You know, there really _is_ a book I want to show you."

"Really? Like, a real book this time?" Luke said as he slipped behind the counter into the kitchen.

Jess rolled his eyes, really resembling his uncle for a second. " _Yes_ , a real book. Or really, just a rough draft. It's my NaNoWriMo thing; you know I'm doing that!"

"Really?" Jess's attention quickly passed from the open kitchen doorway to Rory's eager face. "You're doing NaNoWriMo too? How's it coming along?" Then Rory blanched. "Wait, I haven't done NaNoWriMo for the past three days. I'm five thousand words behind. If I get home now, I'll have just enough time to get it done before dinner. Wait, homework! And—and Paris wanted me to write a rough draft about an article that we're doing about the recent influx of cavities after Halloween and if it's ethical to keep the candy tradition around at the risk of the health of America's youth, and my argument was going to be Yes, it's fine as long as you can control yourself, and I know that's weird, coming from me, and I was supposed to have it ready by tomorrow to be approved by the newspaper committee—"

Jess leaned across the counter and put his finger against her lips. She fell silent instantly, her eyes staring into his.

"You're gonna recover from your lack of writing. Just write some extra each day besides your usual thousand-six-hundred-sixty-seven words and you'll be caught up within the week. That's what I did to tie with you. You _were_ a week ahead of me," Jess reminded her.

"Yeah, but you're probably ahead of me by now," Rory pointed out around his finger. He promptly removed his touch on her lips and let his fingers ghost around her jaw. Rory lost all thought of other people being in the diner, including Luke and staring customers; she was too lost in his eyes, so peculiarly aware of his warm fingers against her soft skin.

"So, you'll pick up the pace until we're on the same page. Then we'll work on our novels together." His hand slipped away, but his eyes didn't. "We won't have to race or anything. Isn't that the point of NaNoWriMo, anyway? There aren't any other competitors except yourself, like there's no prize for first place. The only person you can compete against is yourself. When you're lazy or tired and don't feel like writing, but keep writing anyway, just so you can defeat that voice in your head."

"Okay," Rory said.

"Okay?"

"Okay!" Luke roared from the kitchen.

Rory grinned, which coaxed a smile out onto Jess's face. He pressed her hand and jogged up the stairs. He retrieved his old clunky laptop and she grabbed his arm as he led her outside.

The town square was pretty, all decorated with hay bales, scarecrows, and innumerable pumpkins. They found a spot on one of the park benches. Rory unwrapped her burger and tucked into it as Jess brought up the document on his computer. The old laptop paused and blanked and balked and Jess slapped a hand onto it.

"Don't hurt it," Rory told him.

"I wouldn't have to if it would just work."

Finally the document loaded, and Jess almost handed off the laptop to Rory. Finding both of her hands occupied in holding the big burger, he kept it in his own hands, but shifted it so she could read his written words more easily.

She leaned against his shoulder as she munched. He would've enjoyed this little PDA, but the reality was too painful to bear. He said, "Okay, I can't stand it much longer. Hearing your chewing in my ear makes me want to be deaf."

"But the burger's still hot. If I don't eat it now, it'll turn cold and the cheese will solidify, and then that just makes me think of all the fat and grease currently clogging up my arteries," Rory protested.

Jess stared at her. "You sound like you've actually retained one of Luke's lectures. Besides, whatever happened to you liking burgers that've sat around for a while? Let's them, what, age?"

Rory smacked his arm and he grinned. "You know I just said that because I was being awkward, right?"

"I know, I know," he said, waving her off. "Here's what we'll do," he said, "I'll read it to you aloud while you eat to your heart's content."

"Sounds like an effectual plan," Rory agreed.

"Good. Now if I can just speak loud enough so you can hear me over your chewing. . ."

Rory swatted him again and when Jess could finally control himself, he began to read aloud. His slow low voice brought to life the words he'd already put to paper. Rory listened, sometimes staring at the laptop, sometimes at him, entirely enthralled. The burger in her hands grew cold from the November air as she forgot about it. She drank in Jess's prose as food and water, let it become all she could focus on as he read aloud page after page, laying emphasis on some words and changing tone from character to character.

She couldn't believe he'd written this. She should've known that the well-read could very well write well.

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	12. November 12th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

"Hey, Mom, can I invite Jess over?" Rory asked as she dropped her backpack on the kitchen table. "We need to work on our books."

Lorelai popped her head into view. "Does the phrase 'we need to work on our books' mean that you're actually going to write your books, or does it bear as much actual meaning as, 'Hey, Mom, can I invite Jess over to study?' 'Cause I can tell you right now from experience that if you invite your boyfriend over to your house to study there will _not_ be any studying going on."

"He's _not_ my boyfriend. But I'm _serious_. I didn't write on NaNoWriMo at all yesterday and now I've got a slack of over six-thousand words to catch up on. Jess wants to write with me so I can be motivated to catch up."

"What, so you won't get beat by a boy? Or would you try to beat him out of spite? Which is a better motivator?" Lorelai wanted to know.

"I didn't hear a 'no' in that sentence at all, so I'll call him with a 'yes'," Rory said smoothly.

Lorelai ducked her head around the corner. "Hey, kid," she said.

Rory looked up.

Lorelai looked a little worried. Rory felt a little bad for her when she asked, like she didn't want to impose her own thoughts but couldn't stay quiet, "Actually get some writing done, okay? Like, don't spend your whole timing cozying up to each other."

"We won't. I promise. I have to get this novel done by the end of the month, you know."

"Ah. Rory Gilmore's youthful urges and weaknesses are carefully restrained by her overriding need to get things down on a deadline."

"You can stop making fun of me," Rory told her matter-of-factly, going into her room to change.

Lorelai looked faux-shocked. "I'm not making fun of you! I'm simply stating a fact!"

"Since when have you ever not taken the opportunity to make fun of someone when the opportunity's just standing there, mocking you, until you do it? Name one scenario. _One_ scenario, in your whole life."

"Wow, that's asking for a lot, kid. Give me a few minutes as I go back over _all_ the memories of the past _thirty-four_ years," Lorelai said as she opened the fridge and added some half 'n' half into coffee number six.

"See?" Rory said, popping her head out from her room, her hair haphazard as a result of getting dressed. "You can't name any off the top of your head."

"Which means . . . what, exactly?" Lorelai said, leaning against the stove and resting her hands against the warmth of her reheated coffee. "Doesn't mean I've never done it!"

"This is a pointless conversation," Rory said, entering the kitchen and dialing the home phone to Luke's Diner.

"Ha! You're just saying that because you've run out of witty comebacks. You know why you've run out of witty comebacks? Because _I_ beat you! I won! Not you, me!"

Rory looked drily at her excited mother as the phone rang. "Sometimes I forget that _you_ are the adult around here and not me."

Lorelai shrugged as she leaned back against the stove. "I do that a lot myself."

Rory turned her head away. "Enjoy your seventh cup of coffee."

"Enjoy your 'study-time' with your boyfriend," Lorelai said in the same tone of voice.

Rory instantly turned to her mother. "He's not my boyfriend."

Lorelai scoffed a little. "He darn well better be, after what you went through at the dance marathon with the whole town sitting in the front row eating popcorn. Dean can't accuse you of something like that and you not get with the dude he accused you of liking. That leaves you with no cute boy and a lot of dramatic scandal."

"I'm a Gilmore; we're drawn to drama and scandal," Rory said observantly.

"Yes, especially if you have _Lorelai_ Gilmore blood in you. Seriously, though, kid," Lorelai sighed as she turned to face her, her hip against the oven handle and her eyes on Rory. "Do you want him to be your boyfriend or not?"

Rory bit her lip. The dial tone disappeared and she heard Jess say, slightly annoyed, "Hello?"

"Jess?" Rory asked, still looking her mother in the eyes.

"Rory." His tone changed. Went from 'I'm _so_ ready to play with this conversation if this is some stupid telemarketer calling me to waste my time' to 'Oh, it's the girl I like, like one of the only people on the face of this planet that I enjoy talking to.' "Hey. What's up?"

Rory couldn't speak. She couldn't answer her mother and she couldn't answer Jess. Her brain was on pause, or buffering, or freezing, or something.

"Rory?"

"Rory?" Lorelai finally asked.

Rory finally said into the phone, "Let's write together. Come over. With your laptop. Now." Then she slammed the phone back onto the receiver and her hand darted away like it'd been burned.

"Well, that was short. And to the point. Hopefully he got the message," Lorelai said carefully, venturing into humor and _some_ conversation, 'cause Rory couldn't say anything; she just stood there staring at the phone like she expected it to burst into flames. "Hey, Rory? Kid? You're kinda scaring me here. The only other person I know who just stands there blankly and makes me feel frightened just by doing that is my dad, and usually when he's doing that he's thinking about something good, hard and through. Usually it isn't a good thing. Are you thinking of good things? Of anything? Like an answer to my question? What did he say on the phone? Anything? Nothing? Did he ramble, like me? Look, something I finally have in common with him—"

Rory ran out of the kitchen. She didn't tell her mom to shut up. Not in so many words. But Lorelai could read nonverbal gestures. She also was very observant.

* * *

The knock on the front door was a good sign. It meant that Jess had the manners to not just barge right into the Gilmore household. Lorelai answered the door and Jess immediately looked uncomfortable. Somehow, in the excited rush of snatching up his laptop and jacket and racing out of the diner, he'd forgotten about Lorelai's existence.

"Hey, Jess," Lorelai said, leaning against the open doorway like she was good to stand there all day. "How you doin'?"

"I'm doing all right," he said just as politely. He nodded over her shoulder. "Rory invited me, just so you know."

"Oh, I know," Lorelai said calmly.

Jess didn't know what to say to that kind of flat, blank tone. He shuffled uncomfortably. Lorelai made no move to move. He finally said, "Can I come in?"

"You can. But first, I just wanted to give you one warning. Well, one rule and one warning."

Jess rolled his eyes. "Luke always gave me the boundaries talk. Chaperones and open doors and all that jazz. I've heard it already."

"Okay, then." Lorelai was pleased with Luke finally exploding back into his normal rule-laying self. "Then it'll be just one warning." Lorelai's eyes grew cold. "The moment you step over this threshold, Jess Mariano, you're committing yourself to Rory Gilmore's happiness. If you cross this threshold and then cause her any pain—break her heart, break her arm, whatever—I will make it the last thing you ever do in Stars Hollow."

Jess regarded her, this cold-eyed, maternal woman. He said, "I don't doubt that." Then he sobered. "I promise I won't do that."

"Don't promise," Lorelai warned. "You're gonna cause her pain at some point."

"So my banishment from Stars Hollow is inevitable and you're just patiently biding your time until the perfect opportunity pops up? Like a spider lying in wait for the fly? I'm not doing that. Lorelai—" he paused when he said her name. Was that okay? Would she snap? Or just tell him to call Ms. Gilmore?

She didn't do anything. So he licked his dry lips and continued before his nerve gave out under her unwavering gaze. "I'm not going to play games with you. Not over Rory. I'm not going to be watching my back; I'm not going to care what everyone here in Stars Hollow whispers about me. I'm tired of living like that: constantly being watched, like my screwing up is inevitable. So yeah, I might cause her pain. She's just as capable of doing the same thing to me. We're human. Are you going to hold that against me, that I'm human?"

"I'm holding it against you because you have a reputation for causing pain," Lorelai said. "I'm not inclined to stand by and watch my kid's heart break. Again. I'm tired of doing that. I'm tired of constantly watching her heart break." Lorelai looked away from Jess; she didn't want him to see her eyes.

"So am I," Jess said, sounding a little tired and a little . . . understanding.

Lorelai looked up, her eyes clear.

"Are you going to be her boyfriend?" Lorelai said abruptly, but also like the question had sat on her mind for a long time.

Jess thought her words over. "Not this very second. She and Dean just broke up. It's too soon."

"Is it too soon to tell?" Lorelai wanted to know.

Jess opened his mouth to speak when Rory appeared next to her mom, saying, "You're letting all the cold air in! Oh, Jess," she stopped a moment to look at him with a glimpse of a smile, "you're here."

"That I am," Jess said.

"Come in! I made more coffee and hot chocolate. I got an idea for this next chapter. . ."

Lorelai and Jess didn't break eye contact as Rory, oblivious of their staring contest, took Jess's hand and led him into the kitchen.

Jess dropped his eyes first.

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	13. November 13th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Walmart.**

"So working on NaNoWriMo at Luke's place is out due to the fact that it's constantly haunted by an old troll just looking for trouble; your place is out because suddenly your 'cool' mom has turned into 'helicopter' mom," Jess listed off to Rory the next afternoon.

Rory considered his adjectives as she cradled her coffee cup close to her. "I prefer the word 'hands-on'. She's usually not so hover-y. She can switch it on at any time, though. At least she makes rare use of it." Rory shrugged.

Jess was not so placated. He lifted another finger. "We don't go to the same schools, so free period's out. It's too cold outside to write _outside_ , and we just got shushed out the door of Andrew's bookstore. I thought it was a bookstore, not a library."

"Andrew's just very particular about anyone doing anything other than reading and buying at his bookstore. Anything else interrupts his own reading." Rory tilted her head and said, knowing that Jess most of all would appreciate this, "And you know how annoying it is when you're reading this _crazy_ good book, and someone interrupts you."

Jess scoffed in agreement. "Story of my life," he said, leaning back in his chair.

They'd emailed that morning before school about their next writing sessions. Rory was actually mortified by how hover-y Lorelai was yesterday; how she snooped around the cracked open door, called out to break up their conversations, was generally loud and nosy while they were _trying_ to get some work done. It was very unlike Lorelai; she knew, after the fact, how annoying and weird and out of character she was. Rory gave her a wide-eyed look after she closed the door after Jess. Lorelai winced and said, _"Sorry."_

Any other teenage girl would've gone off on their mom. Rory didn't. She knew her mom had the best of intentions, and while she liked to believe that other people had the best of intentions as well, her overriding mom hover-y nature took over in the end.

Despite her mom's constant interruptions that made Jess raise his eyebrows so much at Rory that they should've stayed up there, the two had actually gotten a decent chunk of work done. Jess had caught up to Rory until they were apace for one single day. Then he wrote on days when she was either dancing or crying too much to care about NaNoWriMo. So Rory lingered in one spot while he ran full speed ahead. Then he stopped. He didn't go back to drag her along with him. He instead decided to walk—walk casually, hands in his pockets, at a leisurely pace. He'd put in time and effort in his sprinting and now earned the right to walk, to walk at the gentle pace of one-thousand-six-hundred-sixty-seven words a day. Rory, however, had sat on the couch instead of stretching her legs, and now had to steadily jog at a fast pace until she caught up to Jess. Then, and only then, could they walk together.

They were currently in a neutral territory spot for today's writing session: Luke's Diner. It wasn't the greatest—it was open for all the world of small Stars Hollow to see that Rory Gilmore and _Jess Mariano_ were sitting together! Also, Papa Bear Luke was still giving them a wary evil eye from behind the counter. Still, it was their best spot thus far. (Rory had briefly thought of suggesting that they work at Weston's Bakery, but decided against it. Weston's was a place she and her mom went to whenever they had a falling-out with Luke. It wouldn't be the best spot to bring his nephew.)

It was neutral territory in so far as it could go either one of two ways: they could write pleasantly and problem-free at one of the tables every afternoon, or they'd get booted out. Not by Luke, of course. More by the mutterings and whispers and gossip being spread behind their back. Like Jess had told Lorelai, _he_ didn't care. But Rory did. And Jess had committed himself to Rory Gilmore's happiness.

"So, we're stuck here," Jess concluded. He didn't say it angrily. He said it as a fact. He didn't want to influence Rory's decisions; he didn't want her to want to leave because _he_ wanted to.

Rory nodded thoughtfully. "Inevitably so. All my life's roads lead to Luke's Diner." Then she looked into his eyes and thought about how terribly true that sentence was.

"Apparently." Jess shifted in his seat, nodded to their two open laptops. They were an interesting juxtaposition—the nice school laptop Lorelai splurged on in the name of good school supplies at a good school will make for a good education which would make for a good life (and she'd combined it also as a Christmas present last year, so, you know, two birds with one stone) and the laptop that looked homemade. Rory wondered if Jess had built it himself. Probably not. He was a nerdy bookworm versus a school nerd who liked electronics and engineering. Still, he could read the know-how and use his streets smarts and reliable instincts to put one together, probably, if he wanted to . . .

Rory nodded back, and they began.

Now, writing NaNoWriMo, despite how much you share it with someone, was a solitary activity. It didn't matter how many times Rory turned her laptop screen to Jess to have him read over a sentence and suggest a different way of phrasing, or how many times Jess described a word he wanted to write but he couldn't think of and Rory shouted out the answer. At the end of the day, it's just you, your computer, and your words. It's your story; you're responsible for it, and it depends entirely on you.

Rory thought of comparing it to a child, then decided it wasn't a fair comparison. Her mother would attest to that, and Luke, too. Raising a kid was a billion times harder than pressing keys on a keyboard.

Most of the time, it was. Except for the moments when Rory wanted to shut up her laptop and say, "Forget about it." When she wanted to strangle her main character for too many reasons: for being too flat, too Mary-Sue-ish, too plain, too sarcastic, too boring, too annoying, too not following the story and instead running down rabbit trails! Rory scoffed and said, "You know, I thought _you_ were supposed to control the character! You're the author! You created them! You're their reason for living, and they don't listen to you—they just do whatever the heck they want! They don't follow the storyline, they don't say the right things, they don't do anything they're supposed to!"

"That's how you know they have character," Jess said, once Rory gasped and caught her breath back. He tilted his head. "Your characters _need_ character, or you're going to have a story nobody likes. You can have the best plot in the world, but at the end of the day, if you have sucky characters, all anyone will remember when they finish reading your book is that there were sucky characters."

"Was that supposed to be a motivational speech?" Rory wondered as she lifted her third cup of coffee to her lips.

"I was thinking more along the lines of an explanation," Jess said, "but I can do a pep talk if you need it." He straightened in his seat, cleared his throat, and said, "You're doing . . . great . . . and your writing's perfect . . . and . . . you'll be world-famous someday!" He ended his joke with a comforting pump of his arm over his chest. Rory was grinning by the end of his routine.

"You have such a way with words," she said, pretending to be serious.

"Why do you think I write?" Jess said, bending his head over his laptop.

"I was thinking it is because you like the sound of your own voice," Rory quipped. She knew that people's words on paper had just as much of someone's voice as any of their words said out loud.

Jess smiled a little. Rory smiled.

Rory actually gained some motivation from his pep talk and dove into the deep waters. She swam further, getting lost in their depths. The surface world faded from memory as she explored the hidden folds of this yet unknown dark world. Wherever her eyes fell, light sprayed across it. It was like discovering hidden treasure, uncovering little gems and meaningful jewels that would stay lost in this darkness if someone didn't bring them up for everyone to see—and read.

The November sun outside the diner drifted down towards the west. Jess knew he had a Walmart shift coming up; then he had school tomorrow. Rory had told him that she and her mom and grandparents were going on a memorable old Yale reunion in New Haven. She looked forward to it slightly apprehensively. He looked up to see her eyebrows tightly knit together. Her intensity increased as her fingers tapped on her keys constantly. She looked so lost in thought, so focused on her work, just like she was at the beginning. Just like Rory Gilmore should be.

Jess hid that smile again. He leaned back in his seat and wondered about Rory Gilmore. How she could care about people so much and yet be so headstrong and ambitious? She had heart and intellect. What more could a man want?

Silently his hand left his worn keyboard and softened over Rory's active hand. Her hand stopped and let his fingers interlock over her fingers, his fingertips pressing gently against her palm. It was a tender gesture from a jaded guy. How should she respond?

The only way she knew how, the way she _must_. She squeezed his hand back.

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	14. November 14th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

 **I'm hitting a little slump in this story, which is actually kind of normal 20,000+ words into NaNoWriMo. Makes me empathize with Rory, LOL.**

Rory's attention slipped from her laptop screen to the list her mom pressed into her hand. The list was composed of an entire wardrobe's contents. Rory didn't believe that her mom really expected her to pack a raincoat, hiking boots, lace-hemmed stockings, and a hazmat suit. (The last hazmat suit they bought for fifty cents at a yard sale was lost somewhere in their closets. Or maybe their attic. They'd misplaced it two years ago and hadn't seen it since.)

It was a weird list, but still a welcome distraction from her laptop. While happy that Grandpa had used his charm, his Yale story, and his rich prestige to win her a free weekday off from school, Rory wasn't looking altogether forward to the day ahead: finally catching up on NaNoWriMo before buckling up for a road trip in her grandparents' car with her troublesome mother all the way to New Haven.

She set aside the weird list (she didn't _really_ need to pack up stuff for it, she was sure—Mom was just joking, because she liked to joke about Grandma—that was all) and turned her attention back to her laptop. While she and Jess had gotten a well-earned chunk of work done yesterday, she still had an extra thousand words to add on to her usual workload of one-thousand-six-hundred-sixty-seven words. After today, she thought brightly, she'd be caught up. Just a regular daily dose every day for the next sixteen days. _Yay._

Rory groaned. Sixteen more days of this? School gave out to weekends and Friday nights had a week buffer between each one but this had no relief. She brushed her teeth every day, ate breakfast, showered, habitually, no thought. She'd have to write every day just like she did those things every day. No break. Relentless.

These were such the annoyed morbid thoughts that haunt every writer. For despite the great love of writing and the great passion for words and stories that drive them to write at all, there is a certain point in every writing project where they groan from the relentless daily work of it. Not all writing can be running away on muses. You can't just write whenever you darn well feel like it. Sometimes you gotta force yourself to write. Especially when you're coming to a boring part of your story. An important part of the story, a filler-joiner-transitioning scene. Still, it was boring but necessary and Rory groaned as she applied her fingers to the keys. Thalia had to make her way from the Philippines to Vietnam. Rory had to write of getting to the airport, onto the plane, her thoughts on passing passengers, her realizing feelings for her sneezing companion, her little cold constantly making her harp on things about life to complain, etc, etc.

Rory felt like writing about realizing feelings for a sneezing companion should be more fun. But there was only so much Rory could find in Josef for Thalia to like. He was relatively boring, the regular friend-zoned dude who'd been in love with Thalia forever but was always shunted to the side while her attention was solely absorbed by her obsession with her grandma's stories. Now, to bring him and his boring constancy into a romantic life was proving a more boring task than Rory could deal with.

Maybe it was because Josef was just an ordinary guy Rory couldn't find a way to spin him into a romantic light. He wasn't the kind of guy she'd go for. He had no ambitions, no great passion in his life. He was nice to everyone, constantly sacrificing himself for the girl he loved. He was a lovable friend-zoned dude that everyone liked. Somehow Rory had to make him into the surprising Prince Charming Thalia had never seen in that light until now, but now she had to. But how? How could Rory make him romantic?

Rory had a touch of inspiration. She'd instead make Thalia meet a dashing young man in Vietnam, a streetwise guy full of wits and knowledge of his little port hometown. He'd be snazzy, at ease, bantering, quick, lithe, dashing, and sneakily handsome. He'd bring light and thought to Thalia's life; he'd be adventurous, daring, fun, and spontaneous, all the things Thalia loved best from her grandma's stories. He'd make Prince Charming jealous but resign to his spot as the forever best friend of Thalia Hillard.

Rory stopped writing, sat back in her chair, and thought. Her eyes widened in alarm. Was this one of every writer's nightmares? Was she unwittingly writing a self-insert story?

No, she couldn't be. She _wouldn't_ write a self-insert story. Self-insert stories were for thirteen-year-old girls who wanted to steal the love interest of a story they loved from the main character because they thought _she_ didn't deserve _him_ while _they_ did. They were petty and stupid and nobody wanted to read them. Rory knew she'd delete her entire novel if she found herself delving into such juvenile writing tendencies.

Then she stood back and tried to look at her story objectively, trying the entire time to not panic. She wasn't writing a self-insert novel, was she? _She_ wasn't imagining herself as Thalia Hillard, getting to travel the world and explore the cultures and satisfy her curiosity to see the world that'd been growing in her since childhood. Dean wasn't the sneezing companion; invariable, boring, dependable, always in love with Thalia even when she didn't notice it, or noticed it and didn't care. Jess wasn't this new dashing arrival, all smart and self-assured and, while a nuisance to the rest of his town, lovable in his own way. No, no, no, no!

Rory's grandmother wasn't a traveling woman. Emily Gilmore had gone to Europe a couple of times and been all over America, but she'd gone with her husband on visiting-friends trips, not on visiting-places trips. She never had adventures. She went to museums and charity balls and raised champagne glasses and shook senators' hands. She didn't make odd friends of complete strangers and get into car chases by accidentally offending some local gang or stealing some revered local antique. Emily Gilmore was elegant, high-class, and _boring_. If she had any fun stories of her travels, she never held Rory spell-bound by them. All she ever did was harp on all the rich high-class people she met. Rory didn't hold against her grandmother her lack of adventures or fun tales; as a matter of fact, in this comparing of her story to her real life, Rory was grateful that _her_ grandmother was nothing like _Thalia's_ grandmother.

Her grandfather was nothing like Thalia's grandfather, and hey, her parents weren't dead. There! There were plenty of differences between Thalia and Rory! Thalia enjoyed sports while Rory really didn't; Rory loved small town quirks while Thalia grated against them. Rory loved coffee and Thalia hated coffee and loved tea (Rory realized now that she might've made it a direct point to tell the reader this from the get-go, just so the reader would never be able to draw a correlation between Thalia and Rory, even as Rory was doing now).

Rory sat back up her chair and resumed a cool head. There was nothing but circumstantial evidence backing up the case of her NaNoWriMo novel being a self-insert fantasy story. It was sparse, subjective evidence. It was nothing. There was no correlation. None whatsoever.

Rory wrote another hundred or so words with this conviction in her mind. Then she stopped and let her irrationality take over as she, panicked, spent the next fifteen minutes making little text messages on her tiny flip phone to Jess, the only other person who'd read this story, asking him if he thought anyone or any of the events in the story reminded him of anyone—did _any little thing_ remind him of _anything_ or strike him with a moment of déjà vu or something? Her laptop screen went black from disuse and her chances of finally catching up today fell by the wayside as the minutes ticked by until Lorelai came barging in, announcing that the Gilmore Train was pulling into the station in less than ten minutes.

Rory didn't care too much about not catching up today as they drove up to New Haven. Her mind was still unsettled regarding the Great Self-Insert Question. Then she forgot about her novel when they reached Yale. And she had an interview to get into Yale?! And she and her mom grabbed good tacos from Hector's and caught a cab home and crashed on Luke's metaphorical couch.

She and Jess had their first _real_ kiss then, out on under the streetlights of a Stars Hollow November night. It'd been a long day and Rory's head reeled. Somehow everything came into focus when he kissed her. He dispelled all the awkwardness and uncertainty surrounding them for the past three days. Monday's awkwardness, Tuesday's Invasion of the Mom from Outer Space, and Wednesday's neutral territory disappeared as they clearly defined _them_ to each other. Suddenly Rory didn't care if her novel was a self-insert story or not. She didn't care about Yale or her grandparents. She only saw _him_.

Walking back to the Diner together, hand-in-hand, after they'd said everything they'd been waiting to say for forever but couldn't until the ice was broken, Jess said, "Oh, by the way, I got your texts from earlier. You're not clingy in the _slightest_ , are you?"

Rory smiled. "I was in a moment of weakness, full of anxiety and urgency. I'm fine now."

"Well, just to settle the question in your mind," Jess said, looking at her, "I didn't think your story sounded familiar at all."

Rory beamed and squeezed his hand. _Now_ she felt completely relieved.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	15. November 15th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Freaky Friday. Or Pop tarts. Or Little Women. Also the real people are real people. :P**

"Wait, what do you mean, no Friday night dinner?" Rory looked up from packing her backpack at her mom in surprise. No Friday night dinner? It was like—like saying there was no longer going to be Tuesday every week. It was such a habit, such a part of their life—it was such a _thing_. They were going to stop doing a thing?!

"When I say, 'Hey, no Friday night dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's tonight', I probably mean, 'Hey, no Friday night dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's tonight'," Lorelai said coolly as she poured the last of their once full coffeepot into her travel mug. She took a quick peek at the thermostat outside and wrinkled her nose. "Bundle up. This is one that's gonna keep nippin' at your nose."

"But it's a month too early," Rory protested, her mind still reeling over the idea of _no Friday night dinner_.

"Tell that to Connecticut winter. I'm sure it'll take your comments into account while it decides to be freezing cold tomorrow anyway," Lorelai said, catching up her keys and swinging her purse onto her shoulder. She nodded at Rory; they looked like Freaky Friday. Lorelai wore a pantsuit that made her look all business-y, a real boss-lady; she had her coffee all ready for driving, hair brushed out, keys in hand, and high heels to boot. Rory, meanwhile, was kind of a haphazard mess. She was too busy rushing around to put a jacket over her Chilton uniform or sweep off the Pop tart crumbs from her shoulder. Her stockings were uneven; despite two zippers, her backpack still had cracks in it, showing off the corner of her laptop and a corner of her notebook. Her hair _was_ brushed once upon a time; it looked like she'd stuck her head out a moving car's window. The bewildered look bestowed on her face brought on by the sudden idea of _no Friday night dinner_ finished her detailed 'Deer in the Headlights' look.

"You almost ready, or do you need another ten minutes? If so, you're locking up the house behind you," Lorelai said unsympathetically.

Rory gathered herself together as she grabbed a jacket and stuck her stuff back into her backpack. "I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm just frazzled. That's all. My entire schedule's now been thrown off because of no Friday night dinner."

"Well, we lived without it once, we can do it again. Don't you remember the good old days, where we didn't have to dread the beginning of each weekend, and we only had to plaster on fake smiles at Thanksgiving and Christmas?" Lorelai grinned with one of those fake smiles now as she dusted her daughter off and attempted to defrizz the frazzled hair. "You really should pull back your hair back more, especially with this cold winter wind making itself well known at all hours of the day."

"My hair's fine. So, this is it? One big argument and we're back to visiting Grandma and Grandpa only during the holidays? Mom," Rory said, pleading in her tone.

"It's one big argument that's culminated from years and years of issues. I can relate every point we argued back to some point I've spent my entire life arguing with my parents about. School, money, control, manipulation, ruling people's lives, absence of free will, keep your nose out of other people's business, etcetera, etcetera," Lorelai said, pretending to be casual and chatty while being inherently bitter. Rory could read her mother's intonation like an open book.

Lorelai fixed Rory's worried face with a sigh and a half-smile. "It's not about you, kid. It's always been about control with my parents; they've been doubting my decisions all my life because they're _my_ decisions, not theirs. They want you to go to Yale purely because _that's_ the school they approve of and not the school _we_ chose."

Rory didn't betray her mother's ill-use of the pronouns _my_ and _we_. She put on an encouraging smile so she wouldn't betray the fact that she'd perused that Yale pamphlet last night. She simply said as she heaved on her backpack, "They're still paying for Chilton. Do you think we'll get back into the habit of Friday night dinners, once things settle down a bit?"

"By settle down, you mean when my father issues us a big fat apology? Then yes; cancel any Friday night plans you might naively dream up to take place of going to the Gilmore mausoleum—er, _mansion_ , I believe it's _supposed_ to be called; you are not going anywhere fun like a teenager should on Friday nights," Lorelai said, as they threw open the front door, "no, you are going to settle a deal by grinning through five courses of pure torture!"

Rory grinned. "You have such a way with words."

"I know; you get all your creativity and wit and cleverness from me; all from me; I claim entire credit!" Lorelai fiddled with her leather gloves as Rory held her coffee. Lorelai looked at Rory and said, "It's a tiny bit chilly out here."

Rory could barely move. "You think?"

They settled into the car. Lorelai would drop Rory off at the bus stop. It was too cold for any trek farther than the mailbox. Lorelai sat back once she was buckled in and said in realization, "You _like_ Friday night dinners."

Rory looked up. "What?"

"You _like_ Friday night dinners," Lorelai said in an accusing voice. "That's why you keep pestering me about them. That's why you looked so wide-eyed at the idea of _no_ Friday night dinners. That's why you want them reinstated. _You. Like. Them._ "

"I don't . . . _like_ them," Rory said hurriedly.

Lorelai shook her head as she let the engine warm up. " _Yes_ , you do. You're such a bad liar, Rory. It's so cute, and so funny, considering how much of my daughter you are in so many other different ways. You _like_ Friday night dinners."

"Yes, okay, I admit it, I _do_! I _do_ like Friday night dinners! I like getting dressed up and having a cocktail hour and five course dinners and interesting conversation on a variety of topics involving society and the economy. I like drinking from elegant glass cups and using cloth napkins and feeling like I've stepped into another world. But most of all, I like visiting with Grandma and Grandpa. I know you and they don't see eye to eye much at all, but I _do_ like Grandma and Grandpa. They can be controlling and harsh sometimes, but they have good hearts and good intentions and they _do_ love us. Sometimes it just doesn't come out that way. But they like me and I like them. Whatever's between you and them is between you and them. I _like_ what's going on between _me_ and them. Yes, Grandpa's forcing his Yale dream on me a little too much. I don't like it all without warning. But I have to remember that I'm his only granddaughter, and he does it out of love. So, so, that's it." Rory caught her breath and looked at her mother anxiously. Lorelai looked straight ahead, focusing on the road, silent. "Is it so bad that I miss eating dinner with my grandparents?" Rory wondered nervously.

Lorelai was quiet, then shook her head. "No, kid," she said, her voice quiet but calm, "it's not. That _is_ the way it should be." She knew that some of her parents' issues with her concerned how she raised Rory. But Rory _was_ a separate entity from her; her relationship with her grandparents was not the same relationship between _her_ and her parents.

"Okay," Rory said slowly. She wasn't going to ask her mom to try to reconcile them back together with her grandparents. It was Grandpa's fault about Yale and he owed Mom an apology. It would happen if it happened. She couldn't force Friday night dinners on anyone.

On the drive to the bus stop, Rory pulled out her laptop and opened her word file. She didn't need Wi-Fi to log onto it, thank goodness. She wrote a steady stream on her NaNoWriMo novel while hot air struggled to blast through the air system and Lorelai sipped at her mobile coffee.

"You working on your novel?" Lorelai wondered.

"Yep," Rory said, not looking up as she hurried away.

Lorelai shrugged and had to stop abruptly at a red light. Rory barely wavered as she clunked away at her laptop.

"How's it going? Are you caught up yet?"

"I am. I just want to get today's done soon. Jess and I were planning to go to a movie some night. I guess some night's tonight."

"Ohhhh, a movie? What kind of a movie? Is it a premiere? Is it something I could enjoy? Is it something I could enjoy while sitting two seats behind you two?"

"Stop it! I swear, someday your mild teasing will catch me off-guard by you actually making well on your scary promises," Rory said.

"Oh, I _am_ serious. You think me teasing? I _never_ tease. I'm just _curious_."

"I'm talking about the Black-White-Read Bookshop," Rory said. "They're showing a 1949 version of 'Little Women'. We're expecting it to be very Hollywood, not quite as realistic-looking at the 1994 version with Winona Ryder."

"Ah, but really, who can top Winona Ryder?" Lorelai said.

"I know!"

"Wait, so Jess is going to watch 'Little Women'? As in, almost the entire cast is made up of women and there's no fighting or guns or anything? He's going to voluntarily watch it?"

"Hey, he likes Louisa May Alcott. She's not so big on dry descriptions. Big on dry wit, though."

"Well, so's he. So it's _perfect_ for him," Lorelai said dryly, officially thrown off the scent.

Rory snickered. _Exactly._

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	16. November 16th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore girls. Or Walmart. Or OSHA. Or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.**

It was a calm Saturday afternoon, and Jess was exhausted. He felt beat, leaning an arm against Luke's Diner's counter, his hand sliding away from him on a skate made of wet rag. He'd gotten up at six and worked on his novel, ignoring Luke's constant pleas after him. He kept switching back and forth from asking him to _please_ take a crack at that homework, 'cause he has a test on Monday and two reports due by Wednesday and he was desperately procrastinating from both, or to come help him with the diner, at least. Caesar overslept and he had the annoying first round of early birds who should've been in bed for another couple of hours, considering it was Saturday, _the day_ for sleeping in. (Jess wished he could indulge in the luxury of sleeping in. Typically, he liked being awake; there were always books to read and people to observe and annoy; but it was _Saturday,_ and he was young and tired.)

He ignored Luke's incessant voice and sped steadily ahead on his novel. He had just hit the 26,672-word mark when Luke marched in, physically snatched the laptop from his hands, and said, "I have a line of ten people down there. I have no one in the kitchen but myself, no one taking orders but myself, and no one responding to the constant fires of 'I need coffee!' I have to hear every five seconds, _but myself_. Downstairs. _Now._ "

Seeing as he couldn't muster up an impenetrable defense, Jess pressed his lips into a fine line and didn't say a single offensive word as he marched down ahead of Luke.

The day was nonstop. He ignored his upcoming homework and kept the diner up until he had to leave for his six-hour Walmart shift. Then, the moment he got home, beat from the constancy of his minimum wage shift, Luke nodded to a just-filled table and said, "Hey, can you get their order?"

"Do you count my hours or is this just a little extra, under-the-table kind of work? Should I call OSHA?" Jess snarked, handing off the filled order sheet to Caesar and giving Luke a look.

"How about the roof over your head and the bed you sleep in? That payment enough for helping out your uncle?" Luke asked, not in the mood.

Jess rolled his eyes and galloped up the staircase. He put away his vest, changed into a long-sleeve dark grey shirt, and mussed up his hair. He grabbed his latest read, _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ , and headed downstairs. He grabbed his jacket from the hook by the curtain and was about to head out to the town square—to sit in the cold with autumn leaves spinning over him while he broke the book's spine by folding it mercilessly over, was what kept him going today—when Luke said, "Hey."

Jess stopped mid-step. He didn't speak, but his curled lips and bitter eyes did all the talking for him.

"Do you mind just giving the counter a wipe? All the pastries this town stuffs themselves with—crumbs _everywhere_. Carbs and crumbs and cake doughnuts. . ."

Jess rolled his eyes but caught the wet dish rag Luke threw to him like a baseball. He swept his hand around the counter, bristling and muttering words under his breath and thinking thoughts that he didn't say aloud but made him happy to think anyway. He looked up when two things occurred quite at once: a strike of lightning lit up the dark November sky, and Rory Gilmore, freshly soaked from the sudden downpour of rain that hadn't been there thirty seconds ago, stood in the doorway. She was silhouetted by the background lightning strike, making her profile imposing and shadowed at the same time. The light disappeared, revealing a Rory wearing a drowned rat look.

Jess straightened up; the idea of reading outside disappeared and was immediately replaced with an even better replacement. His hand fell into the rhythm of going 'round and 'round in circles around the damp counter as Rory stumbled over to the counter, knocking her knee into a barstool.

"I feel like I was hit by a bus. Do I look like I was hit by a bus?" she wanted to know.

Jess shrugged. "I don't know. Should you? _Were_ you hit by a bus?"

Rory shook her head. "No, but I _did_ have to endure a _three-hour_ long meeting with Paris Geller and the entire _Franklin_ committee _at school on a Saturday_."

"Ah, but I thought you liked school. Going to school on a Saturday must be a dream come true for you," Jess smirked.

"Three hours. _Three hours_ of Paris nonstop _obsessing_ over the seventy-fifth issue of the _Franklin_. _Three hours_ of Paris talking and pointing and editing and shouting and nitpicking and micromanaging and hovering over your shoulder so you can't move without feeling her moist dragon breath on your neck. I thought cruel and unusual punishment was illegal in the United States."

"I think it is against criminals," Jess baited unapologetically.

"So I'm innocent _and_ I still suffer."

"So it would appear."

 _"Ohhhhh."_ Rory buried her wet face in her folded arms, right on Jess's damp counter. Jess stopped wiping and looked at the back of her wet head sympathetically. Eventually a voice peeped out from under the hair: "Why does my knee hurt?"

"You hit the stool right on target about . . . _two_ minutes ago. Are you just now registering the pain?" Jess wondered.

"Apparently. I'm delaying all feelings until I'm done processing what's happened in the past four hours."

"I think it'd help if you took a seat and drank something. Did you walk in that rain?" Jess wanted to know, not looking away from her prone form as he retrieved a coffeepot and some chocolate syrup.

"Just from the bus stop. It wasn't raining in Hartford," Rory said, pulling her head up and dragging her butt onto the stool. She peeled off her damp jacket and ran her hands down over her hair in an attempt to smooth it out.

Jess brought over a drink for her. "Here, drink this. Sadly we have no alcohol on the premises, or else I would've given you a shot or two to clear your head."

Rory wrapped her hands around the warm mug, indulging in the mocha scent. "Don't let my mom hear about you threatening me with underage drinking. She's done it before but it's twice as bad coming from you."

Jess could make about a thousand wry comments about her mom and underage drinking but he wisely summed up with a concise, "I know. Now, inhale that. You looked soaked to the skin."

Rory drank the mocha coffee, hmming to herself after each warm wave of chocolate. "Is that cinnamon in there?" she wondered.

Jess nodded and went back to wiping. Besides cleaning up the water Rory tracked in, he was just aimlessly wiping a seemingly immaculate surface. It just made him look busy if Luke came in; he was just standing there looking at his girlfriend, was all.

He looked up when Rory said, like she'd been staring at him for a while, "You look tired."

"Not as much as you do," he said just as quick back.

Rory rocked her head back and forth in agreement. In a tired voice, she demanded, "Tell me a story."

"A story?" Jess said; he stopped wiping.

Rory nodded, looking like she was about to doze off any second. "A bedtime story. A nice story. A _happy_ story."

"You're asking for quite a lot there," Jess said. Even as he said that, he wracked his brain for any kind of story plots to bring up and embroider on the spot. None of his story ideas were particularly cheerful or nice. They were dark, pessimistic, border-lining unpleasant, _real_. He liked reading fictional realities of life: poverty, alcoholism, broken dreams, and human nature just as much as he enjoyed ambition, dreams, perseverance, grit and persistence, tenacity and loyalty. He couldn't just pop a fairy tale out of his hat.

"I know. But I know you're capable of anything. You read too much not to pick up some things," Rory pointed out.

Jess mused over that. That was true. So he took a deep breath and focusing on the rag in his hand, he made up a story. It sounded familiar to Rory; the characters he described were characters from _his_ NaNoWriMo novel. He told her of the upcoming plot twists and story events that he'd write out; the secret agent's reveal, the heist, the betrayal, the friendship, the villain's demise, the ultimate conclusion, the romantic get-together. Jess didn't like to categorize himself as a romantic. That sounded lofty and flowery, poetic and gross. But he liked his love stories just as much as any other writer; he'd get his main characters together. He had to. It was the way the story _needed_ to be written. He knew what made a good novel; he knew how to write it.

"And then it's the end. That's how it ends," Jess said lamely, raising his hand up and dropping it.

Rory squinted at him. "You just spoiled the entire ending for me."

Jess repeated the gesture. "Well, _sorry_. But hey, now I know I'll never get writer's block, 'cause I know exactly how it's supposed to go."

"That's true. It's good as a writer to know what you want," Rory said.

"Yeah, I agree. And you know what I want?" Jess asked.

"What?" said Rory.

But she knew. You knew when he leaned across the counter and kissed her full on the mouth that she knew _exactly_ what he wanted.

"I like this ending," she said dreamily, smiling.

Jess smirked. He _did_ know how to write a good ending.

 **Thanks for reading. Review?**


	17. November 17th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or LOTR. Or Pop Tarts.**

 **I've been re-watching some S3 episodes to get into the characters and I'm enjoying it all over again.**

"I thought Sunday was the day of rest," said Rory pathetically, trying in vain to escape writing for _just one day_.

"There's no rest for the weary," Jess pointed out, sighing as he leaned back in his Diner chair.

"Don't throw cliché phrases at me. It doesn't help alleviate my current pessimistic mood," Rory said petulantly.

Lorelai looked up from her huge stack of pancakes soaked through with an unholy amount of maple syrup and said, "Whoa, them's some big words to be using on a day off. Jess," Lorelai looked at him seriously, "don't poke the dragon. She's usually a very calm dragon. You feed her pizza, you pet her on the head, she stays calm and sedate. But if you keep poking her, odds are is that she'll then chase you around the kingdom. Did I mention that she'd be spewing a trail of fire at you the whole time she's chasing you?"

"That's a picture," Jess said, not sure what else to say but impressed by that picture of Rory anyway. Sweet-tempered, good-natured, teacher's-pet, Rory Gilmore: an attacking dragon. It _was_ hard and wasn't hard to picture at the same time.

Luke came over, Lorelai's natural gravity always pulling him along. He looked at Rory and Jess sitting next to each other, each with fingers poised over their keyboards but both enjoying the art of banter rather than the art of literature more at the moment. Then he looked at Lorelai and the family-sized platter of flapjacks in front of her and said, "It's two in the afternoon."

"How is that relevant? This is, what, third breakfast?" Lorelai looked at Rory for confirmation.

Rory scrunched up her nose like a rabbit. Jess set his chin against the upturned heel of his hand and watched her, amused, at the corner of her eye. He might've gone unnoticed by Rory, but Luke had perfect vision and _nothing_ slipped away from under his eagle gaze. "I thought it was fourth?" Rory said thoughtfully. "'Cause we had Pop Tarts at home for first breakfast; came here for second breakfast; ate a half-dozen muffins at the Inn; and now here's fourth breakfast."

"A half-dozen muffins—each or individually?" Luke wondered.

"Take a wild guess," Rory said calmly.

"Did we eat lunch at noon or was _that_ fourth breakfast, making this _fifth_ breakfast?" Lorelai asked.

"What did we have for lunch again?" Rory wondered.

"We stopped over by Weston's and had a pumpkin spice coffee and doughnut."

"Hmmm, I'd consider that more of a mid-morning snack. Or a coffee break."

"It was kind of breakfast-y though, wasn't it?" Lorelai asked. "Maybe it should be classified as _fourth_ breakfast."

"Did we eat it after noon or before noon? That would determine if it was lunch or not," Rory said.

"You're eating this stack of pancakes after noon," Luke said, gesturing wildly to the behemoth mountain Lorelai had dubbed Mount Kilimanjelly. "So that would make this not qualify as _any_ breakfast. It would be some kind of a lunch."

"How would Pippin classify all this?" Lorelai sighed.

"If Pippin were here, Pippin would know," Rory said mournfully. "Oh!" she brightened. "Less than a month until the third movie premiere!"

"We've made it this far!" Lorelai cheered.

"Nerds," Jess whispered under his breath, turning his head away from Rory's ear.

"I'm sorry, how many times did you say you've read the Lord of the Rings series through again?" Rory wanted to know. "Wasn't it . . . six times? Was it six times?"

"I heard seven," Lorelai said, hiding a smile.

"Six! It was . . . six times," Jess muttered.

Rory smiled triumphantly and squeezed his arm. "We're totally going to the midnight premiere."

"Hey! You promised to go with me!" Lorelai half-yelled.

"So we'll all go." Rory looked past Lorelai's head. "Luke, too."

"Ah, no, _not_ 'Luke, too'. I've got a diner to run at in the morning. I can't just go to midnight premieres on Friday nights," Luke said.

"Apparently _we_ can, because we're now free Friday nights!" Lorelai cheered.

"What, I thought you guys went to your parents' house on Friday nights," Luke said to Lorelai, confused.

Lorelai waved a hand. "Mandatory visits are now suspended until further notice."

Luke gave Rory a look. She held up a hand. "Long story, don't ask. It'll work itself out."

"In the meantime, we four are all going to the midnight premiere of The Return of the King!" Lorelai cheered.

"Since when did I start sitting at the nerd table?" Jess wanted to know.

"Says the nerdy bookworm who's writing his own book," Rory said, ruffling his hair.

"I'm still not going. I'm not the biggest Lord of the Rings fan in the world," Luke said.

"Ah, you may not have an affinity for hobbits and dwarves, but you _do_ like those redshirts and Klingon," Lorelai said teasingly, tilting her head against her shoulder and beaming up at Luke.

His cheeks warmed despite himself as he said, "They're not the same; don't compare the two."

"Wait, Uncle Luke, is this amazing thing Lorelai's accusing you of true? You're a _Trekkie_?" Jess asked mockingly.

"Maybe, but at least I don't wish I lived on Middle-earth," Luke said, deadpan.

Jess held his hands up defensively and Lorelai asked, "What was our real topic of conversation?"

"Which meal are you eating?" Rory answered.

"Hmmm. As far as meals ago, maybe the sixth or the seventh of the day? Who knows. It's been a long day."

"It's two in the afternoon," Luke reminded her.

"Yeah. Been up since six, on a _Sunday_. I think I'm owed some kind of foodstuffs reward for making it this far without crashing," Lorelai said, digging into the now very cold pancakes.

"Sounds like you've been rewarding yourself all day. How are you not three hundred pounds?" Luke said, shaking his head.

"It's the Gilmore metabolism. It's wicked fast and effective," Rory explained.

"If we could bottle it and sell it, we could run all those other weight loss companies into the ground!" Lorelai declared.

"And be millionaires, besides," Rory pointed out.

"Or we could just be greedy and drunk with power and run those companies into the ground!" Lorelai said, cackling.

Luke not-so-casually snatched the almost-empty pitcher of maple syrup from the table. At the sound of Lorelai's startled "Uh—", he said, "No more sugar. I don't care if your metabolism can take it. Your sanity _clearly can't_."

Lorelai watched him leave with a look full of longing after the syrup and a begrudging respect after the man. "He can be such a _parent_ sometimes," she muttered, turning back to her pancakes.

"Tell me about it," Jess said.

Lorelai leaned closer, excitement spread all over her face. "Ohh, yes! Tell what it's like to have Luke Danes as your legal guardian!"

Jess threw her a look, then whispered to Rory, his eyes still on Lorelai, "I don't know how to respond when she talks like that."

"Sarcasm and witty quips are what she usually expects, so that's usually the route to go with," Rory said.

Lorelai still grinned broadly at them, enjoying Jess's obvious discomfort and Rory's shrugging nonchalance.

Jess took Rory's advice and said to Lorelai, "Just peachy."

"Figures. That's what I imagined it would be like," Lorelai said. She fell to her . . . whatever this meal was, and pretended to focus on it with her full attention. She kept peeking up from the fluffy folds of carbs and syrupy sweet goodness to observe the nerdy bookworms in front of her ('cause they were bookworms—that was an undeniable fact—and yes, they were very, very nerdy. They might deny it, they might tell her the dictionary definition of 'nerd' to exonerate themselves of such a label, but Lorelai didn't care. They were nerds, these two on their computers, writing something called NaNoWriMo and talking about midnight premieres of Lord of the Rings).

They were similar and dissimilar in so many ways, Lorelai couldn't count them all. They were 'good' and 'bad', respectful and really, really not, caring and really, really not. Yet they both had senses of humor; both were hardworking and 'lazy'. Both were self-motivated and wasting their time doing stuff. They were both committing themselves to this weird Internet thing because they both had ambitions and they both _loved_ words. They loved writing. They bonded over that same love.

Lorelai sat back from her pancakes and nursed her third coffee refill. She didn't wear a smile as she watched these two interact. Saw how Rory would stop her typing and watch Jess's next sentence unfold; saw how Jess could feel her eyes on him and work intentionally to make the sentence either really good or really funny. He would make her nod with approval or stifle a laugh with a barely-restraining smile as she touched his shoulder. Lorelai saw how Jess would stop what he was doing when Rory asked him about one of _her_ sentences; how he'd lean in close and point a finger at her screen and explain to her his thoughts, the _why_ behind his editing and suggestions. Lorelai saw the little smile always wavering around Rory's lips every time she looked at him, and she saw the constant look in Jess's eyes every time he looked at Rory; it was a look that Lorelai couldn't believe; she couldn't believe that the word that described the something in his eyes when he looked at her daughter was _adoration_. She just _couldn't_.

Rory broke her gaze with Jess and saw her mom and said, "What are you looking at us so funny for? Do I have something in my teeth?"

Lorelai shook her head. "No, no reason." She waved. "No reason at all."

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	18. November 18th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

"Gilmore? Gilmore!" Paris's commanding voice made Rory look up, startled, from the notebook she was fiercely writing on. Everyone on the _Franklin_ writing staff, thanks to Paris, stared at her.

"Remind me to learn your full name so I can scream that to get your attention next time. Screaming 'Gilmore' is barely getting the job done. Are we clear?" Paris demanded to know.

"Abundantly," Rory said, annoyed.

"Good. Now, as I was saying that apparently bored Ms. Gilmore to distraction," Paris gave Rory a glare, which Rory ignored, "this issue requires _our full attention_. Think of the best edition the _Franklin_ ever put out. Picture it in your mind. It's beautiful, isn't it?" Several happy faces grew drained of color when Paris slammed her hand against the work table. "Destroy it! In your mind, it is no longer the best that we here at Chilton can put out. It's ugly, stupid, the worst piece of literature you've ever had the misfortune to read! The special edition for the _Franklin's_ seventy-fifth anniversary is going to blow our previous best work out of the water. Got it?"

"Got it," Louise said; Madeline dumbly nodded like a bobblehead.

"Fine. Now, keep thinking of that image in your mind until Wednesday's meeting. You are _destroying_ that piece of crap! Meeting adjourned." Louise, Madeline, and all other unfortunate members of the _Franklin_ staff didn't need to be told to leave twice. They escaped Paris's sharp gaze, scrambling into the halls of Chilton. All except Rory, of course. She turned back to her notebook and scribbled down another plot idea into a little empty spot of notebook paper. She'd worked on this one page over the past several hours, in moments in the hall, at the cafeteria lunch table, and even at covert moments in the classroom. Now, completely free from all school activities for the day, she turned back to her brainstorming. She had five minutes before she'd collect her books and meet the Stars Hollow bound bus. She had time.

"You know, if you spent half the time and effort you spend on those personal-time notes on this paper, we'd _definitely_ make the best issue of the _Franklin_ ," Paris informed Rory.

Rory didn't look up at Paris's short but imposing presence over her. She just shrugged and said, "I'm not putting too much effort into this. I'm just kind of info-dumping."

"But you've got the muse; you've got passion and words flooding out of you. It's organic. You like what you're writing. Readers respond to real. If you could write articles for the _Franklin_ in that same way, we'd have to print a second edition," Paris said, taking a seat. Her voice was . . . _serious_. Paris Geller, Rory knew from experience, didn't usually compliment _anyone_. The only times she ever used flattery were usually when she was bribing someone, or blackmailing them, or insulting them in a sarcastic, roundabout manner. Paris Geller _never_ spoke anything but exactly what she truly meant to Rory. So for Paris to say something nice to her caught Rory by surprise.

Rory decided to pay Paris the two cents' worth of attention she was clearly aiming at. She put down her pencil and said, "Paris, no offense, but I can't write for the newspaper like I'm writing for my novel. The newspaper is for public consumption showcasing facts and real-world events. Here, I'm just making up whatever the heck I like because it's _my_ made-up world. I don't get the creative freedom in newspaper writing like I do with personal writing. They're noncomparable. They're not the same."

"Well, I certainly hope that lacking _creative freedom_ doesn't put a dampener on your journalism career," Paris snapped. "You know, Rory, for someone who wants to grow up to be a journalist and get paid _for writing newspaper articles_ , you're really not acting terribly enthusiastic about it right now, at this critical point in your career."

"'This critical point of my career?' As of this moment in time, Paris, I don't _have_ a career. I'm seventeen-years-old and a full-time high school student, besides. I don't _have_ a career."

"I mean your school career. What will look better at the end of the day, that you attempted to write a novel, or that you were a crucial part of a team that put out the best reviewed newspaper in all of her prestigious high school's illustrious and long history? Which one, Gilmore?"

"Wow, okay, my full name is Lorelai Leigh Gilmore. There. Are you happy? Just stop calling me just 'Gilmore' or I'll be forced to not be the bigger person and will call you 'Geller' instead of Paris."

"Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, huh? Your mom had an especial attachment to the letter L, apparently. Anyway, can't you see that I'm right?"

Rory closed her notebook and packed up her books. She had enough. "Why, Paris Geller, I think you're jealous."

"Jealous? Jealous?! Jealous of what, pray tell?" Paris demanded to know, following Rory from the classroom to her locker.

" _You_ are jealous that this month my attentions had been more focused on my own personal project than on _your_ especial project," Rory said, unlocking her locker and retrieving all her necessary personal items, including a hair tie. She looked at Paris for a response to this accusation as she tied her hair back into a ponytail.

"I am not jealous! I'm incensed! I'm incensed that you would use valuable time during our _Franklin_ meetings, meetings that count to us as credit for class, mind you, to daydream and doodle on notebooks, while your entire focus should be shifted onto the mammoth agenda we have to accomplish with this particular issue of our school paper. Our entire school careers are going to be hinged on this edition. 'Hey, do you remember Paris Geller from Chilton? The only thing I remember about her is that she put out the suckiest paper in the history of private school!' The only way I want to be defined by anyone reading this paper is nothing short of being the genius editor behind it, and I can't put out a stellar paper if my best writer is off writing self-insert fantasy stories where her Prince Charming mysteriously has the face of the latest heartthrob celebrity!"

"Yep, you're jealous," Rory concluded, locking up her locker and walking to the doors. Paris, still grasping two heavy textbooks she'd been dragging along every step Rory took away from her, ran after Rory. _She_ was not put off by her short legs.

"Am not!"

"Are too."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Then why you are bashing my novel and praising this issue of the _Franklin_? I've already written almost thirty thousand words on my novel and we've barely broken the groundwork for this issue, writing-wise. All we've done is talk about this issue of the _Franklin_ and discussed writing ideas. Meanwhile, I'm coming to the second act of my novel."

"How's that going? The pacing, I mean? You've hit the pacing for the novel correctly, so that your reader doesn't get bored halfway through and decide to go with a book that has an actual satisfying ending?" Paris said, suddenly switching gears from barely acknowledging Rory's novel's merits to discussing its backbone in-depth.

Rory stumbled, surprised. "It's . . . going well. The happy all-the-world road-trip has met with a few bumps, including but not limited to my main character getting her wallet and identity stolen, getting deserted by her loyal companion who's also in love with her, and catching a terrible local sickness in Siberia."

"Hmmmm, sounds tragic," Paris said unfeelingly. "See? You care about your Mary Sue. Why can't you care about journalism?"

Rory, again, was startled by Paris's words. "I _do_ care about journalism, Paris. I just don't think that so much hinges on this one issue of the _Franklin_ as you think it does. Besides, you have an entire staff to order around and write articles. Why are you going after me? Madeline and Louise write five times less than I do. Get on them over productivity."

"I'm not looking for quantity, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore. I'm looking for quality. You're the best writer on staff, besides _moi_ , and I need _quality_ or else this special anniversary issue is going to nosedive and hit ground in a terrific firework of flames."

"Okay, I lied. You can go back to just Gilmore. Don't ever say my whole name ever again, please."

"I promise to never say it again so long as you actually put some effort into journalism, like you're _supposed_ to."

"You can't blackmail me, Paris," Rory informed her.

"Oh, so you're going to be an author of novels when you grow up? You know, most novels just end up on discount store shelves. They all sit there, collecting dust for decades. Then they get bought by lonely spinsters and eventually end up on someone's driveway at a garage sale. This newspaper, however, will live forever here at Chilton, Rory. This issue will be _the mark_ we've made on Chilton history. Don't you want to make a mark on history, Rory?" Paris wanted to know.

"Paris, while I _do_ want to do that, I also want to win NaNoWriMo. Can't I do both of them at the same time?" Rory asked.

"I'm sorry. I got the feeling from your note-taking that you _can't_ do them both at the same time."

"I could if we actually moved on to writing articles for the newspaper instead of forever harping on its arrangement!"

Paris blinked. "Oh. So, if we moved forward to the actual writing part, you'd be into it?"

"Yes! Yes! I will be _way_ more interested when we get to the writing!"

"Oh. I see. All right." Paris nodded. "Next meeting we'll discuss writing assignments."

Rory wearily nodded. "Good."

"Good." Paris nodded, then walked away, to Rory's complete and utter relief.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	19. November 19th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or the New York Times.**

Michel glanced over at Rory's laptop and wrinkled his nose. He turned back to the Independence Inn computer and said loftily, as if he hadn't just done some snooping, "You know, you are being paid to _work_ here, not collect money while you write your own little fairy tale."

"It's not a fairy tale; it's an adventure novel," Rory said calmly without looking up.

"Are there far-away lands?"

"Yes—"

"Romance?"

"Well, yes—"

"Hovels and witches and magic and spells and beanstalks?"

"I'd have to say 'no' to those last few suggestions."

"Well," Michel sniffed, "you are well on the road to writing a fairy tale."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rory decided as the best answer to Michel's unnecessary comment.

Quiet passed between them for a few moments. Rory was doing her little helpful schtick at the Independence Inn today. It was fall, and Stars Hollows and its surrounding areas were full of days-long festivals. The Independence Inn found itself booked solid.

Technically Rory was here to call upcoming guests about their check-in dates, make sure all the deliveries had arrived for the day, and deal with customers with check-ins or other problems. Right now, to Michel's great annoyance, Rory found herself occupied doing _none_ of the things she was independently contracted to do. Instead, her fingers were making steady headway through pages of her novel.

Michel, finally incensed by the insistent, incessant sound of her typing, threw his head up and cried, "Why must you keeping pounding away at those keys? Very many things here at work give me a headache, and that is one of them!"

"If I was working right now, Michel, I'd be making the exact same noise," Rory told him promptly.

"Then why don't you go ahead and work? It'd be making me feel better if I knew you weren't enjoying yourself right now," Michel scowled pathetically as he turned back to the break-sheet, checking to make sure all employees clocked in for the day had taken their necessary half-hour meal-breaks.

"I've already done all that I can do by myself," Rory said. "I've checked the list Mom left for me. All scheduled deliveries due today have already arrived. I signed for them myself and listed them in the tracking log. I've made sure all the new bath towels have been given to the maids to distribute to the rooms. Everyone's who's booked to come in in the next week we've either spoken to on the phone or left them voice mails. We've already gone over next week's schedule; all it needs is Mom's look-over and approval. Nobody coming in today has been a no-call, no-show. Everyone's here, doing what they need to do. All I've got left is waiting for Mom, and in the meantime, if there are any guests coming up to the desk or any phone calls ringing my way," Rory looked at Michel seriously, "I will handle them. I _promise_."

Michel groaned loudly and walked back over to the computer. He supposed he _should_ get to work coordinating the third floor's repainting next month; he opened their room-scheduling program and began to rearrange people so no one would be sleeping on that level for the whole painting weekend. He muttered to himself the whole way while Rory, satisfied in her work and in her able, ready reply, set back to her novel-writing with satisfaction.

More silence. It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon. Maids passed by with their room-cleaning carts. Sookie's usual shrieking and squealing could be heard from the kitchen. A few guests lingered in front of the fireplace, waiting for the rest of their party to appear from their rooms or reading a book in the quiet stillness of another world.

The silence was great; Michel could stay happy for the rest of his shift if there were no more guests bugging him via face-to-fact confrontation or by phone, no subordinates coming to him with some kind of problem that he _must_ fix, and no Mini Lorelai whistling cheerfully under her breath as she smugly thought herself the next New York Times Best-Selling Author.

"What is so interesting that you _won't stop writing_? Surely you cannot be able to focus on one thing for so long; nobody can like anything _that_ much."

Rory stopped writing. She looked up and looked Michel square in the face and said, "Well, I do. I'm reaching an exciting part of my story."

"What? The end of it?" Michel deadpanned.

"No. So Thalia, my main character, is starting to panic. Things are not going to plan. She's contracted this awful disease in Siberia. She's been deserted by the dude she's friend-zoned like a billion times because he thinks she's in love with this new dude she became great friends with in Vietnam but later deserted her. She's almost all alone in this hovel—"

"Ah! So there _is_ a hovel!" Michel pointed out triumphantly, never one to let a Gilmore get _anything_ past him.

"Well, yes, there is," Rory conceded. Her eyes grew bright as she quickly moved on, gesticulating as she explained further, "And she's wearing this old blanket from Siberia that she's brought all around the world with her, 'cause, see, it used to be her grandmother's. Her only house companion is this old lady who can only speak like five words of English but can make a mean comforting _aspic_ , which is like this meat jelly, and _pirozhki_ , which is like a small pie. Thalia's realizing that maybe traveling the world isn't as adventurous as it sounds. And then this old lady is showing her albums full of her life, her kids and grandkids and the man she loved, and even though she can't understand what this lady's saying in words, she can understand in her heart what she means. And she's realizing, 'Wait a second, this is what my grandmother realized. Traveling the world doesn't make you happy, in the end. The thing that will make you happy is being with the people you love.' So Thalia's realizing that her experience in traveling the world isn't as great as her grandmother's was because Thalia doesn't take the time to stop and smell the roses and talk to people."

"In this particular set of circumstances, the people are the roses, right? Talking to the people is the same as smelling the roses?" Michel asked, half-dry, half-interested. He propped his head on his hand, his elbow against the Inn desk. He was far more absorbed in this weird little story than in Inn repainting.

"Well, yeah, basically," Rory said, shrugging.

"Obviously this Thalia has never been to France, or else she would discover that traveling _does_ make you happy. How can you not be happy when you see the Eiffel Tower or walk along the Champs-Élysées or eat Crêpes Suzette at a roadside café?" Michel spoke with a tone of great love and affection, remembering that great civilized country. How could he have abandoned it for living with blunt, annoying Americans?

Rory regarded his words. Then said, "Would it make you happy doing all those things _alone_?"

 _That_ caught Michel's attention. She said, "'Cause Thalia's been alone since Vietnam and hasn't enjoyed a single thing since."

"Doesn't she have that love interest? Won't he just _magically_ show up at this dreary little hovel in the middle of nowhere and confess his love _and_ nurse her back to health to boot?" Michel wanted to know.

"No, he won't," Rory said slowly. "He won't, because that is what _would_ happen in a story. And while this is a story, I want it to be semi-realistic. Also, I want character development. So, no, that's _not_ what's going to happen."

"Oh no, is Thalia going to live with the hovel lady forever? Without a single conversation or a single day that isn't under thirty degrees?" Michel said, sounding way too concerned.

"No. She's going to get nursed back to health while undergoing a change of heart. She and the old lady are going to form a great friendship, and when Thalia gets better, she's going to hunt down her companion. She's going to go to him, to confess that she's been an ass and blind by wanting to travel than be with the people she loves, who love her."

"Oh, so now she's realizing feelings for Mr. Friend-Zone and running into his arms? Like, admitting her fault to the dude who likes her? That is _not_ going to work, crawling back to him, begging him to take her back. It's so pathetic," Michel said.

"But it's _character development_ ," Rory said. "Besides, when two people are in love, why shouldn't they be together? It'd be stupid if they didn't get together because she didn't admit her feelings for him."

"Well, I suppose. But how do you expect Little Miss Siberia to track down Mr. Friend-Zone—?"

Lorelai walked into the Independence Inn with a briefcase in one hand and a drained coffee cup in the other. She stopped short, surprised, when she saw the scene before her. Michel, usually so quiet and annoying that one would think he constantly ran on 50% battery, was fully animated as he conducted a lively discussion over _something_ with Rory, whose bright eyes and hand gestures showed her own enthusiasm.

"Hey, guys," Lorelai interrupted.

Rory and Michel shut up and turned to her. "Oh, hi, Lorelai. Rory was just discussing her latest novel with me," Michel said.

"Well, um, that's pretty cool. It's time to go home, though, kid," Lorelai said.

Rory gathered her stuff. Michel called after her, "Let me know how it ends!"

"I will!" Rory called over her shoulder.

Lorelai looked back at Michel as they walked to the front door. "What. Was. That?" she wanted to know immediately.

"Oh, nothing. We were just having a literary discussion," Rory said loftily, hiding a smile.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	20. November 20th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Walmart. Or Pop Tarts.**

Rory found herself wandering into Sookie's kitchen for a snack. It was a habit she'd done for years and years. She could remember being five-years-old and coming home from kindergarten to kiss Mom on the cheek, leave her to her afternoon cleaning work, and wander into the Independence Inn kitchen to beg for one of Sookie's delicious creations.

Sookie always kept the cookie jar full, for Rory and others alike. She used to sit little Rory up at the counter on a big ol' bar stool with a big cup of milk and enough cookies to ruin her supper. Sookie helped expand Rory's ever-growing, never-settling appetite at an early age.

Jess was working an after-school shift at Walmart that afternoon, or Rory would've gone to satisfy her comforting food cravings and work on her NaNoWriMo novel at Luke's. Instead, she got off at an earlier bus stop and walked up the drive to the Independence Inn. At the front desk, Michel glanced up from the mail he was picking through and said, "Ah, Rory! So good to see you. Have you been working on your novel?"

Ordinarily Michel wouldn't have given her a second glance, too much of his daily dose of impatience already spent on the older Gilmore. For whatever reason, he found himself attracted to the outcome of this story.

Rory had no qualms talking about it as she flattened her elbows on the desk and described in great detail the reunion between Josef, the lovesick Mr. Friend-zone about to get the shock of his life, and Thalia, who'd been nursed back to blooming health by the nice old hovel lady.

Michel ate it up. He didn't need an excuse to ignore a guest, but he put off a woman much longer than was professional to do to let Rory finish her sentence. Rory noticed and bowed out and waved the woman to the desk, making Michel look at her with sad longing eyes as Rory bounced away to the dining room. He didn't want to do his job! He wanted to hear the end of the scene! Ugh.

Rory set down her knapsack at one of the tables in the cozy Independence Inn dining room. A roaring fire blazed in the hearth. A couple of guests sat far away, enjoying each other's company and conversation and enjoying Sookie's cake even more. It was too late for a late lunch, too early for an early supper; Rory had caught the dining room at its emptiest moment, and she enjoyed every moment. She slung her knapsack on the back of her chair, opened her word document, and let the warmth of the fire burn away every vestige of chill that still clung to her from her brief walk to the front door. She typed busily away for about two minutes before her eyes traveled to the kitchen entrance. Suddenly all her thoughts were taken captive by the happy thought of some fresh baked-good, and wouldn't it be such a fine thing to have a fresh cup of tea by a blazing fire? Rory, of course, would normally jump at the chance to have a nice cup of coffee from the carafe Sookie made a definite point of keeping filled at all hours of the day (Lorelai was wont to come wandering in at any hour, like a ghost seeking only one thing before, moaning, heading back out the door again) but she felt very British at the moment. Working on a novel in a cozy dining room with a roaring fire was the kind of situation that required you to have a very beautiful, delicate cup of tea. English breakfast, of course, with a saucer.

Rory entered the crazy pre-dinner insanity of Sookie's chaotic/perfectly run kitchen and made a beeline for the cookie jar. She was pleased to find coconut macaroons and was munching on her fourth when Sookie caught sight of her. "Rory!" she called, just as the saucepan she was swirling around on the stovetop lit up with flames.

Rory's eyes widened as she pointed her hand still clasped around her cookie, "Sookie! Fire!"

"Fire?" Sookie turned back to the blazing inferno, inperturbed. "Oh, it's supposed to do that. Just burning off the alcohol, is all." She put the pan off the stove and hurried over to Rory. "Oh, no, that was yesterday's batch of treats! They're probably really old and stale right now."

Rory looked up, nonplussed. "Today Mom and I discovered a box of open Pop Tarts that expired nine months ago."

"You threw them away, right?" Sookie asked worriedly.

"Nope. They were breakfast," Rory said.

Sookie shuddered. "I swear, if I only taught you and your mom how to cook, you guys would have _regard_ for gourmet food."

Rory pretended to be shocked and offended. "I have a _great_ regard for gourmet food. I just don't have the palate refined enough to offer an upturned nose at old Pop Tarts."

"'Old' is a nice word. They were expired, Rory," Sookie admonished. She brought around the newest batch of goodies and said, "This is where I step in occasionally. Your mom doesn't turn up her nose at expired Pop Tarts, but I will."

"Yes, it's probably for the best that we do that in the future," Rory said. Sookie was just trying to help, and Rory took her words as that instead of her butting her nose in. "Ohhh, what's on the menu today?" Rory asked expectantly. She knelt on the butt of a chair, her legs kicking out under her excitedly.

Sookie beamed with an especial twinkle in her eyes. She wore the look of an aunt who loved spoiling kids' appetites. "Well, today's treat is just a little something I whipped up called biscotti." She put the baking tray on the table, causing Rory's eyes to widen and her mouth to form a little 'O'. "They're a twice-baked cookie. First you bake the dough as a loaf, then bake the slices until they're dry. You dip them in drinks to eat them."

"Ohhhh, that reminds me. I came in here for a spot of tea," Rory said.

"A spot o' tea," Sookie repeated in a British accent, giggling. "I already thought of that. Michel mentioned you were in the dining room, so I already ordered the tea because I knew I'd get the biscotti out to dip them in!"

"Your mind-reading skills are astounding," Rory said, as one of Sookie's cooks put down two cups of tea. "Why don't you sit down with me?" Sookie looked hesitantly back at her staff. "For like, two minutes." Rory dubbed a pleading tone and a pouty lip. "Please?"

"Well," Sookie, unable to resist such a welcome temptation, "just for a minute." She smiled as she took a seat at the table opposite Rory.

"Exactly. Just for a minute," Rory said in firm agreement.

Sookie giggled as they dipped their biscotti into their tea. Rory groaned happily and double-dipped, looking oddly reminiscent of her mother. "Sookie! What is the flavor on this? You could package these and sell them to all fifty states. They'd be an instant hit. They'd be talking about you on all the morning news shows. You know, you could leave this entire life behind for a life of fame and fortune."

"Why would I go for fame and fortune when I can have Stars Hollow and cooking?" Sookie said. She sighed happily. She liked getting those kinds of responses from people. "The flavor is pumpkin spice latte. It's pureed pumpkin with freshly ground spices and just a _hint_ of espresso."

"Of course, that's why I like them so much! Oh, my gosh," Rory said, letting her last bit of cookie almost fall apart from the weight of her tea before finishing it off and diving for another. "See? Now I can't go back to writing. I'm otherwise occupied until further notice."

"Oh, your writing! Your mom and _Michel_ , weirdly enough, were telling me about it. How's it going? I already know what it's about. Michel won't stop rambling on about it."

"Yeah, that I don't get, but I do appreciate it," Rory said.

"Michel has very few things he likes, but when he likes something, watch out!" Sookie made a motion with her hand like it was clasping together around a fly in mid-air.

"It's going okay. My muse isn't too much at work today, though, or I wouldn't get distracted by cookies so easily," Rory said. She regarded her second biscotti and shrugged. "But then, I always get distracted when I know there are cookies somewhere to be found on the premises."

"Oh, make coming here a habit! I love having you here, and so does your mom and Michel. You can write like a real author out in the dining room, and I'll bring you tea and goodies while you're editing! So _nice_ and _proper_! Ohh! It sounds so fun and _perfect_!" Sookie decided.

"Well, I _will_ do that, definitely. But I might go to Luke's more. Jess and I like to write side-by-side together. You know, for morale support and writers' advice," Rory said.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. _'Morale support.'_ " Sookie winked suggestively at Rory.

Rory said, fake-mad, "Mom does that. Don't you start, too."

"I can't help it. Your mom and I are best friends. We rub off on each other." Just then Sookie caught sight of one of her cooks throwing away beet greens and she almost had a heart attack. "I gotta go, Rory. Come back and visit us as often as you can. Pedro, Pedro!" she yelled, barreling up from the table, "why are you throwing away perfectly good food?!"

Rory smiled and got up. Sookie was back to business and so should she. She picked up her tea and after a second thought, grabbed another biscotti before going back to her writing.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	21. November 21st

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Alice in Wonderland.**

When Lorelai waltzed into Luke's Diner after an eight-hour long shift dealing with annoying guests, pesky co-workers, and endless problems, she expected to find no peace and quiet. She expected a clamor of customers swarming after Luke, calling after him again and again for more pie, more coffee, more pie, more doughnuts, more coffee, more _pie_ , even as they talked with their mouths full and clanged their silverware against their plates. She expected it to be mayhem and foolishness, loudness and annoyance after the long, long day she had. She expected to have a disgruntled Luke to peeve further for a good two minutes, enjoying herself while he squirmed under her hold, anxious to shut everyone else up.

She was fairly disappointed when the ding of the Diner's bell as she opened the door was the loudest thing she heard. She walked in and inspected the place with surprise. She wanted to compare the place to somewhere quiet, like a library or a mausoleum, but she couldn't determine which place was quieter. She decided that the Diner was the quietest.

"Hey, Lorelai," Luke called.

She stomped over to the counter, annoyed that he had nowhere to go, nowhere to be. He had all the time in the world; he could take his time pouring her coffee, relax instead of wriggle under her gaze. It took all the fun out of it. She'd survived a long hard day at the office to go to a place full of rest and relaxation? Please! This wasn't what carried her through those long hours! She demanded one-on-one attention in a workplace that demanded the boss at every turn!

"What's up?" she said, annoyed, as she flung her purse onto the counter. Luke looked jolted by her sudden motion as she said, "Can I have a coffee?"

"Yes, of course you can," Luke said, stressing politeness when she didn't tack on a forgiving "please." He fetched her a big wide mug and was plenty generous in his pouring. He leaned against the counter as she gulped down the coffee like she'd walked through a desert for three days and stumbled upon a pool of the freshest, nicest water in the whole world. He blinked as she smacked her lips and set her cup back down on the counter. "Hard day?"

"You have no idea," Lorelai said simply.

"Pie?" Luke said.

Lorelai appreciated his quick jump to making her once again her happy-go-lucky self. Her want for mayhem went away; she could get used to a little peace and quiet.

"Yes, please," she said.

Luke gave her a deep nod of the head and turned to the several cake holders bearing pies with a slice or two already cut outta each one. He hovered his knife over each one until Lorelai nodded enthusiastically over the pecan one. Luke scoffed. "Figures. You want the one made out of sugar and nuts."

Lorelai tilted her head and gave him a smile. "You know me too well." She gratefully accepted the hefty piece and did a little people-watching as she enjoyed her moment of peace and quiet. Luke moved out to the kitchen and she turned in 90-degree angles once she'd seen all she could in one position. Behind the counter she watched Luke ring up a few paying customers on the register. Noticed where his beard needed a little trimming, the Connecticut baseball logo splayed across the front, now back, of his hat. Caesar expertly flipped burgers on the flat top on one side even while he poured pancakes and kept an eye on bacon on another side of it. There was something comforting in all this familiarity.

Turning to face the right side of the Diner, she saw the back door to Luke's supply closet slightly ajar, saw Kirk tackling a waffle stack about ten times too big for him. Saw Miss Patty and Babette gossiping together in the window corner, squealing and giggling their heads together, as Morey looked demurely on, nursing his coffee and looking altogether too cool for the entire town yet content to just sit there with Babette for the rest of his life.

Turning around to put her back to the counter, Lorelai sipped her refilled coffee. Reverend Skinner and Rabbi Barans were having a good-natured theological debate in the corner.

It was a nice Thursday afternoon with cold temperatures raging outside the window, but in a way that no one held it against them. It was time for November to take a hold on the weather and plunge it into the cold-before winter that everyone expected.

Lorelai was surprised and _not_ surprised by what she saw by her fourth spin. Against the west wall, the autumn sunlight poured through the window panes to splay across the shoulders of Rory and Jess. They sat at a table together, but ignored each other like the other didn't exist. Instead of their usual fight against the upcoming end-of-November deadline, they were engaged in other literary pursuits, some that others would consider preferable to the adventurous act of writing. Instead of delving into worlds of their own making, they gleefully slipped through the looking glass into the made-up worlds of others' imaginations.

"They've reverted back to their usual selves," Lorelai said, turning to Luke. She jutted a thumb to her left, pointing to the two bookworms.

Luke nodded. "So it seems they have."

"Whatever happened to their writing together? Don't they each have to write like, two thousand words a day or something?" Lorelai wondered.

"Technically they have to write one-thousand-sixty-seven words a day. If they feel lazy, they can get away with only writing one-thousand-sixty-six words a day, but only for a few days, or they'll be short." Luke shrugged, like he didn't put a whole lot of thought into that thought or anything.

Lorelai blinked. "Why are you a better parent than me when you're not neither of their parents?"

"I was just paying attention. That's all," Luke said.

Lorelai leaned her head on her hand and watched them from far away. They kinda looked like her and Luke. Not too much, but just a little. Rory, with her eyes completely focused on her book, her only movements an occasional swipe of hair from her mouth or turning her page. Then Jess, all sprawled on the chair across from her. He did what Rory considered sacrilege: he mercilessly folded his book in half with disregard for its spine and read it like that, his hand clasped tight like claws to keep it together in one concrete, dense thing. His only movements were turning the page and occasionally letting his eyes flicker over to Rory, to stop and stare and observe her unobserved. Lorelai liked the idea of observing _him_ unobserved.

"Why are they reading, though?" Lorelai wondered aloud.

Luke put together another pot of coffee as he said, "They said they needed to take a step back. Go back to their roots, get refocused, that kind of stuff. Whatever. I think it's just an excuse for them to take a break together."

"Ah, well, that's not such a bad thing," Lorelai said. She saw both, still solely focused on their own novel, exchange a silent, sweet gesture. Jess's fingers slid down the top of the table and found Rory's hand. His fingers snuggled in against her fingers, getting lost in them. Rory's fingers welcomed his, clutching his tightly. Neither acknowledged the other otherwise. Still, Jess cracked a little smile to himself, and Rory bit her lip.

"They're so different from each other," Lorelai said.

Luke cocked his head. "Well, yes and no."

"They shouldn't get along so well. They're too different for the whole opposites attract thing to work, and they're too similar to like each other because then all they should see are the faults they dislike about themselves in another person," Lorelai said.

"Well, yes and no," Luke said, again. He wasn't going to argue with Lorelai about their kids, and Lorelai knew that. She knew that Luke really approved of the whole Rory/Jess thing happening here. She wished she was more on that boat, but she still had one foot left on shore. She couldn't forget the past and couldn't stop worrying about the future. But then she looked at her kid, and thought about how _happy_ she was. How she found someone who appreciated her love for books, who did the same stupid Internet writing contest as she did. Someone who could understand her passion and love for certain things that even Lorelai found herself unable to do sometimes. It was weird, not being able to be there for Rory while this _guy_ could.

Lorelai sat back to face the counter, looking a little sad.

"What's that face?" Luke wondered. He kept his hands busy wiping down some cups.

"It's the face I pull when I realize that I can't be everything for Rory. I mean, I _know_ that I can't be everything for Rory. I've known that for _years_. But I've been so many things for her: mom, friend, sister, confidante, junk-food supplier. I mean, I keep her _in_ potato chips and snack cakes. But, like, I know I can't be everything for her. I-I know that. Is it sad that I know that and am still sad about it?" Lorelai raised and dropped her hands with a sigh.

"No, it's okay. Welcome to the boat the rest of us are in," Luke teased comfortingly.

Lorelai smiled a little wistfully as he poured her more coffee. She looked over at Jess and Rory, each lost in their own little individual worlds and in _their_ own little world, and said, "They're pretty cute together."

Luke smiled at Lorelai. She didn't see him. "Yeah, I guess they are," he conceded.

Rory flipped a page. Jess dog-eared a page corner. His fingertips tapped against her. She squeezed his hand back.

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	22. November 22th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Diet Coke.**

"Once again, this is weird. This isn't normal," Rory said at their kitchen table. It was unnatural, being home at the end of Friday, sitting at their kitchen table instead of at Grandpa and Grandma's dining room table.

"I dunno," Lorelai said, looking up from the oven where their pizza was bubbling along nicely. She smiled at Rory through her straggled veil of hair. "I kinda like it."

"Of course you do. Traitor," Rory accused relentlessly.

"Well, what do you want me to say? 'Yes, I miss them too. I can't stand it a moment longer. I'm going to run back into my parents' arms and beg their forgiveness.' Would you like that? You want Mommy to go beg and grovel and kneel and tear her jeans' knees?"

"Yes, please," Rory said.

Lorelai dragged out an old cookie sheet and opened the oven door, revealing their delicious frozen pizza. "With that kind of an attitude, I don't suppose frozen pizza sounds appealing to you. Well, I guess I'll just eat this entire thing by myself."

Rory's stomach growled so audibly that the noise echoed in the kitchen. Rory said, "I take it all back."

"But Grandpa and Grandma have _Diet Coke_. That simply _cannot_ compare to the simple rusticity of what normal, middle-class working people eat. No, no." Lorelai rescued the pizza from the hot oven and set it on the table, crushing a dirty old potholder under it. Rory closed her laptop and looked up innocently at her mom. Lorelai took off her oven mitts, tsking as she said, "Unfortunately, we cannot dine with the bourgeoisie every night, so you're gonna get stuck with this." Lorelai bowed a little, her hands flat together, as she said, "Is this okay, Ms. Gilmore, or do you want to send me back into the kitchen to cry and curse my life instead of remake that salad again for the sixth time?"

"Okay, I get it. I get your point. Yes, please, I would like some of the simple junk food off the menu tonight," Rory said.

Lorelai held up a finger. "Ah, _mademoiselle_ , that is an _excellent_ choice. It shall be brought to your person presently." Lorelai created a jangled noise as she searched and searched through every drawer looking for the pizza cutter. Rory made herself useful fetching a couple of paper plates, some fresh coffee, and a bag of chips that was half full of chips while the other half was all rolled and scrunched up. In silence, with barely a cue from the other, they worked in perfect harmony to put dinner on the table. Lorelai staunchly butchered the pizza into quarters, Rory poured the coffee, and they opened the chips and set them between their two plates. Upon sitting down, Lorelai opened one of the many notebooks she kept in her work briefcase and Rory opened her laptop. They ate silently for once, Lorelai pausing to make adjustments to the next month's schedule full of meetings, Rory chewing on pizza as she wrote, pausing to take bites and reread her latest sentence.

It was cozy, sitting at the crowded kitchen table; a nice comfortable rain fell outside, making one happy to be in on a Friday evening, knowing that tomorrow they had nowhere to go and could sleep in however long they wanted to.

Lorelai finished eating first (big shocker there) and put away her notebook loudly. She gave Rory a look when Rory didn't acknowledge this loudness; she snapped her briefcase shut with excessive noise, but this too couldn't draw Rory out of her writing state. She actually left her pizza crusts _undisturbed_ and attracting flies while her fingers moved at this stupid pace.

"Earth to Rory, Earth to Rory," Lorelai said, waving her hand.

Rory looked up. Lorelai said, "Hi there, kid. Your attention span seems kinda long and I'm feeling kind of ignored. Whatcha workin' on?"

"A romance scene," Rory said simply.

Lorelai's eyes bugged out, making Rory smirk. There was still something fun about the child making the parent worried about 'taboo' topics. The idea of little Rory writing about romance when she used to write about bunnies and fairy tales and talking diner food still made Lorelai go bug-eyed from surprise.

"You know what? Lay it on me. I can take it." Lorelai straightened up, clearing her throat as she clasped her hands together and faced Rory with a perfectly controlled face. "I'm a big girl. I can handle it. Come on, dish."

"Wait, what do you mean, dish? What do you mean, Mom?" Rory asked worriedly.

Lorelai caught her bluff. "Oh, you know _exactly_ what I'm talking about, young lady. Don't try to play dumb with me. I'm not dumb, and neither are you. Read me what you've written so far for your 'romance' scene."

"Oh, you don't want to hear it. It's boring and probably stupid, so . . ." Rory tried another tactic; if she made it sound boring enough, her mother's short attention span would quickly be eclipsed by something much more interesting.

"Never been one to think that you doubt your own abilities. Come on, I want to hear it. Unless it's too rated MA for your ol' lady here. Tell me, Rory: is it _shamefully_ dirty? Would it cause a deep blush to spread across your grandmother's face and your grandfather to choke on his drink?" Lorelai teased.

Rory wouldn't let herself blush by her mom's shameless prodding. "No, it's not _dirty_. It's just a very intense, vulnerable scene. If you don't know the back-stories to both of the characters, it just sounds cheesy and run-of-the-mill instead of heartfelt."

"Fine, if that's the case: get me up to speed. They're your characters; you know them, know their story better than literally anyone in the entire world. Tell me what's up so then _I_ can appreciate the strong intensity and . . . the _deep_ emotional magnitude of this scene," Lorelai demanded.

"You're so demanding," Rory said, even as she straightened her back.

"Oh, I know. Go ahead," Lorelai said. She clasped her coffee mug to her and leaned forward in anticipation; while she enjoyed teasing Rory, there was a realness behind their banter. Rory _was_ pleased that her mom was interested in her work, and Lorelai really _did_ want to hear a bit of what her daughter had been working so hard on.

"All right, so remember my main character, Thalia?"

"I've only heard her name about a thousand times from you, so I'd have to vote _yes_."

"Good, 'cause if you said _no_ , I would've advised you to get your ears checked."

"Noted. Continue."

"Okay, so Thalia's gone through a lot of trial and error all by herself after she's abandoned by her companion—"

"Is it awful to say that 'abandoned by her companion' has a nice ring to it?"

"—and now she realizes that she _does_ love her companion slash best friend dude. His name is Josef. I've also mentioned him about a thousand times."

"Hmmmm, I figure closer to nine-ninety."

"Anyway, she's found him in this little spot in Jordan. She's tracked him down all this way—"

"Tracked him down? Isn't this modern day? Can't she just call his cellphone or email him or something?"

"You're assuming that they have cell service, and in fact, working cellphones."

"So I'm now assuming that they _don't_ have working cellphones?"

"No, they don't."

"Well, _sorry_ for assuming they did. This is why I need you to catch me up on things. Obviously, there are a few things I've missed."

"That's about it on all the things you've missed."

"That's it? Wow, these are no deep-set characters you're writing."

Rory gave her mom a look. Lorelai said, sweeping her hand, "Come on. Read me the most romantic part of the entire scene."

"Okay," Rory said slowly. She cleared her throat. "'He looked the same as he'd always looked to her, yet different, as if he was a picture she'd always seen in darker lighting with blurred vision, and without thinking. He looked nothing like a traditional Prince Charming, yet in that breathless moment, that moment of him looking at her with a gaping-open mouth for the first time since they'd parted angry ways, she wouldn't have traded him for a thousand happily ever afters. How could she? How could she want anyone other than him?

"'Josef couldn't move from surprise, so Thalia was the one to force her feet forward, to destroy the long, long distance between them. Josef finally found use of his tongue and said, "How'd you find me?"

"'Thalia smiled. "Jordan is the only place you've been harping about seeing since we started this trip. I knew you couldn't go home without seeing it." Her breath caught as she looked into the warm sincerity of his brown eyes, his speech there more eloquent than any words his mouth could speak. "And I couldn't go home without seeing you," Thalia said quietly.'"

"Awwww, that's so adorable! Perfect words at the perfect moment. You know when you have a witty comeback but you think of it hours later? _Totally_ glad that's not happening to her here," Lorelai said.

Rory gave her a look. "Do you want me to finish?"

Lorelai nodded. Rory continued. "'Josef opened his mouth to speak, to wonder, to act the friend, when Thalia said, 'Thien means nothing. I don't want him. I want _you_."

"'That was all that Josef needed to know. He put his arms around her and kissed her. She leaned into him and he pressed his hand into her hair. Everyone in the marketplace let out an uproarious cheer.'"

"Well?" Rory wondered anxiously. "Do you like it?"

Lorelai smiled. It _was_ awfully sweet and adorable, and with perfect book-writing timing. "Yeah, I like it. I think it's pretty great, kid."

Rory smiled, both awfully relieved and pleased.

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	23. November 23rd

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

"It's been much too long," Rory declared before slurping on her soda.

"The dance-a-thon tided us over for much longer than any of us would care to admit," Lorelai replied, keeping a firm grasp on her takeout paper bag as they performed hurdles over people's legs in the back row. Luke looked up when Lorelai nearly sat on his lap and said, "You can't make a quiet entrance, can you?"

"Technically, I could. I mean, if someone put a gun to Rory's head and said, 'If you don't make a quiet entrance, your daughter's brains are going to be red,' then yes, I suppose I could be prevailed upon to make a quiet entrance," Lorelai said, before nearly falling into the empty seat two chairs over from him.

Rory took the seat next to her mother that also adjoined to Jess's, so that Lorelai and Luke made a nice sandwich with their two kids between them. Miss Patty's studio chairs crowded together as more multitudes flooded into the dance studio.

"Hey," Jess said to Rory, his head lolling over to look at her from his shoulder.

"Hey," Rory said, almost shyly. She held out a fry. "Fry?"

He waved his hand. "Not tempted."

"Kiss?" she offered next.

"For that, I am," he said. He leaned up and she leaned down.

Lorelai reached across them and put her hand over Luke's eyes. He swatted her hand away. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Shielding your eyes from PDA. You should be thanking me, not throwing away my help," Lorelai told him. She tossed a foil-wrapped burger onto Rory's lap.

Luke noticed her smuggled-in foodstuffs with disgust. "Where did you get that from?" he wondered.

"Jealous that the paper bag doesn't have your diner's logo on it?" Lorelai taunted him. "There's a new burger shop opened up around the corner. Maybe you should check it out. Get a booth that gives you a view of the place, hide behind the menu while you covertly check everything out, ask your waiter oddly specific questions, like where do they source their beef and is their cheese real cheese or just cheese product?"

"Why would they put cheese product instead of cheese on a burger?" Luke wondered.

Lorelai shrugged as she took a hearty bite out of her huge burger. "'Cause American cheese, while not always cheese, is very patriotic. It's food for the soul, besides."

"Yeah, and it'll clog up your arteries," Luke pointed out.

"You have _never_ told me that before. Thank you for informing me. I suggest that you make it a general PSA so that _all_ of Stars Hollow can make well-formed cheese-eating decisions," Lorelai said.

Jess and Rory had stopped kissing long ago to listen to the words being passed back and forth over their heads like a game of tennis. "Are they done yet?" Jess mumbled against Rory's mouth.

"I hope so. Maybe if we kiss more they'll be so grossed that they'll look around for other things to focus on," Rory suggested.

"See, _you_ are the one with the good ideas around here," Jess said, closing his eyes and letting his hand come up to cradle the back of her head.

This had the opposite effect of what Rory wanted. Lorelai instead said, "Hey, Luke, maybe we should speak louder so that we can hear each other over their kissing!"

"Maybe we should WHAT?" Luke yelled louder than her.

"I SAID, MAYBE WE SHOULD SPEAK LOUDER SO THAT WE CAN HEARD EACH OTHER OVER THEIR—" Lorelai got that far before Rory came up and said, "We're done! Are you happy?"

"Jumping over the moon," Lorelai said casually, sipping her soda as Jess, scowling, settled back in his chair. He put his feet up on the chair in front of him, causing Kirk to turn and say, "Jess, I would greatly appreciate it if you took your feet off my chair."

Jess's silent death-glare made Kirk say, "But, of course, do what's most comfortable for you. I don't mind at all." He turned back around and shifted uncomfortably.

"Wow. I wish _I_ had that kind of commanding stare. Imagine how much work Michel would get done at the Inn if he actually did all the stuff I tell him to do," Lorelai told Rory.

Taylor (thankfully) called the meeting to order and so came the entertainment. The next hour or so was spent on Taylor harping about the usual town ordinances and by-laws, upcoming events concerning a food drive and the Christmas tree that would need decorating in the town square ("Did he just say Christmas? We haven't even gotten through Thanksgiving yet!" "Yes, Mom, but remember, Halloween's done, so since it's less than a month until the month of Christmas, so we can talk about it." "Are we going to discuss Valentine's Day next? 'Cause I have a feeling we will.")

The atmosphere of the dance studio became more and more tired/annoyed. Miss Patty's technically _did_ have air-conditioning, but seeing as it was November, she didn't keep it on. Lorelai was ninety-five percent sure that if this had been any other event besides a town meeting, Taylor would bring in the police to arrest Miss Patty for having an illegal number of occupants in her studio at one time. Everybody shed their jackets and coats like exoskeletons and fanned themselves with what flat objects they had on them. Lorelai chose her pocketbook and Rory, who always had books on her, kept herself, Jess, and Luke well-supplied with quick fans.

"My mind's telling me it's November, but my body's saying that it's July and ninety and rising," Lorelai said, sweat glistening on her forehead as her hand, tired, faltered in its fanning.

"We're almost done here, right?" Rory wanted to know.

"Maybe we can sneak out and get some fresh air," Jess suggested.

"Would we be able to without making Taylor have a seizure? He'd see us and go mad," Luke said.

"I can guarantee that I can make a quiet entrance. The same can be so with a quiet exit. I only hope you all are as up for the challenge as I am," Lorelai said, tucking her pocketbook away and grabbing her purse and jacket.

"Wait, we're going all at once?" Luke said, as they all four scrunched up in a huddle, ready to formulate a plan.

"No, we're not. That's like, rule number one of sneaking out," Jess said.

"And you would know," Lorelai said.

Jess threw her a look and Rory said, _"Mom."_

"Sorry," Lorelai said, then shut up.

"Okay, here's what we do," Jess said. Everyone listened as he gestured with his hands. "We need to go single file, while Taylor is either addressing someone in the crowd who isn't near us, or talking about something he's so passionate about that he wouldn't interrupt it for anything in the world, even for deserters."

"See? He has a good head on his shoulders," Luke said defensively to Lorelai.

"I never said he didn't!" Lorelai said.

Jess wore the look of a guy who hated it when people talked about him like he wasn't even there. "Now, Lorelai, you have the end of our row. We can't take the aisle; it's too risky. You get out first. Then Rory, then me, then Luke. We meet outside at the southern end of the studio. Now, this is the part where we wait for the opening."

"Ohh, he's commanding _and_ confident. I can see it now," Lorelai said.

"See what?" Rory asked worriedly.

"Why you're attracted to him."

 _"Mom!"_

Jess rolled his eyes and Luke gave Lorelai a look and Lorelai paid her full attention to Taylor, who said, "Now, for the last order of business, I want to discuss something concerning Rory Gilmore."

Rory's eyes went from her mom to Taylor. "Me?" she said, even as Jess and Luke swiveled their heads around as well.

"Yes, Rory," Taylor called loudly from the podium, "you and that hooligan nephew of Luke."

Jess drew up darkly. "Said hooligan here. Present and not deaf, by the way."

Taylor absentmindedly gave him a wave. "Yes, Miss Rory Gilmore and young Jess Mariano have been engaging in an activity together that is a cause for concern for the whole town."

"Oh my God," Lorelai said worriedly.

"Let's get out of here." Luke's temper could barely be contained.

"What's this activity?" Kirk asked ignorantly.

Rory and Jess looked kinda alarmed. They knew their relationship was premium fodder for the town gossips, but were their love lives together about to be discussed in front of the whole town? Taylor Doose couldn't be _this_ cruel!

"They've been writing books together for this online competition known as National Novel Writing Month, or, as the kids call it (according to my sources), NaNoWriMo. Now, I think that it was awfully selfish of them to engage in this nationwide activity without cluing everyone else in Stars Hollow into it, to see if they wanted to do it too. Online, they are representing Stars Hollow to the entire world. I feel like we could make such a competition a town-wide event next November—"

Lorelai let out her breath in sudden, horrible relief. She wasn't allowed a moment to relax, though, because Luke, screwing the escape plan, stood up and said, "Come on, let's go. Jess, Rory, Lorelai, we're getting out of here."

Taylor was properly ignored as he babbled on about that which he didn't know as these four breathed in the cold November air.

"That was scary," Lorelai said. "That could have gone _so_ many different ways."

Luke sighed. "Let's be glad it didn't."

Jess put an arm around Rory, who was bug-eyed. "Remind me to never go into Doose's again, for many, _many_ good reasons," she said.

Jess smirked a little as he pressed a long kiss to her hair as they walked together after Luke and Lorelai.

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	24. November 24th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or _The Godfather._**

"I want it to be a lazy Sunday. I don't want to write; I want to curl up with a book or watch a bunch of TV and eat junk food and be completely lazy," Rory complained.

"Oh, honey, you're just repeating what literally millions of people are feeling inside right now," Lorelai said breezily.

"I know. My life is good, I'm a complainer, I need to suck it up and be grateful and do the best with what I've got," Rory said.

"That's the spirit, kid," Lorelai said. She dropped a kiss on her daughter's head and picked up her keys. "Okay, I'm gonna go. Sookie and I are going shoe-shopping."

"Wait—shoe-shopping? Without me? I like the mall just as much as either of you," Rory said, sitting up on the couch. Her laptop sat on her bent knees.

"Yes, but we didn't invite you for two reasons. Number one, we're going special shoe-shopping. As in, Sookie's feet are swelling at an alarming rate and we need to spend about four hours shopping for just the right shoes," Lorelai recounted. "Number two, I thought you were totally obsessed with getting your NaNoWriMo novel done in a week, so I thought, 'Hey, how about I let her have the house to herself while Sookie and I do boring but necessary errands?' I'm sorry, did you want to join us on this pleasure trip?"

"You were right the first time. I'll polite decline your last-minute invitation," Rory said.

"Well, you can't, 'cause you were never invited, but I'm glad to know you feel that way," Lorelai said promptly, almost laughing as she slipped on her purse's strap. "It's a week left, right?"

"November's last day is Saturday, so it's t-minus six days, ten hours, and some-odd minutes," Rory said.

"If you don't get crackin', you'll be wishing you had more of those some-odd minutes," Lorelai said, pointing a finger at her.

"Sorry, couldn't hear you, too busy writing," Rory said, not looking up from her laptop.

"Ha! Now I gave you motivation to write. Don't say that I never helped you in your writing career," Lorelai said.

"Of course you've helped. You've been my number-one cheerleader from day one," Rory called over the sofa.

"I thought _Jess_ was your number-one cheerleader," Lorelai teased.

"No, he's my number-one fan. He's read most of what I've written out of everyone in the world, and likes it. You, on the other hand, have been cheering me on from day one without having read a single word of my novel."

"I always wanted to be a cheerleader in high school. I blame you for ruining my chances," Lorelai said.

"I'm awfully glad that you got me instead of a yearbook full of you pretending to do gymnastics," Rory teased.

"Yeah, true. I like you better than everyone else in my high school. I've got more pictures of you than of them, thank God. Still, should I look for some pom-poms and hair scrunchies at the mall, to go with the whole cheerleader label I'm now _totally_ rocking seventeen years late?"

"Only if they're on sale and in cute colors. Don't do grey or puce," Rory decided.

" _Please._ As if any pom-poms in those colors would even be in the running. All right, hon. Have fun. Get some work done. No ragers or watching any movies without me."

"Not even _The Godfather_?" Rory asked innocently.

"Don't even joke about watching _The Godfather_ without me. Do you want your mother to have a heart attack at my young age?"

"Fine, I won't. Is your heart okay now?"

Lorelai put her hand at her chest. "Still beating, which is a good sign."

"How about the 'no boys' rule? Shouldn't you say that one?" Rory wanted to know.

Lorelai shrugged. Rory sat up straight, saying, "Wait, really? I can invite Jess over?"

"Just as long as you guys aren't gross and don't break my favorite china vases, sure. Knock yourselves out," Lorelai said, heading out the door. Then she took two steps back and said, "As long as neither of you guys actually get knocked out. If that happens, he's banned from ever taking a step on this property ever again."

"Those are terms I can work with," Rory decided.

"Glad that they work out for you." Lorelai waved and locked the door behind her.

Rory took this as an invitation to invite Jess over. As much as she'd like to write with him, she had a couple of more important things to do with him that had to get done _immediately_. Within twenty minutes there was a knock on her door. Rory jumped up and opened it to find her smirking boyfriend. His leather jacket was zipped up and his hair looked like the wind had run its fingers through it.

"Someone called for a tutor?" he asked innocently.

"Hmmm, I wouldn't say exactly _that_. I _could_ use someone to help me with a little something, though," Rory said just as innocently.

"And what could that something be?" Jess asked casually.

"Come in and find out," Rory said.

When Rory called the Diner and told Jess that she was home alone, Jess had a few thoughts in mind as to how they should best occupy their time together. But girlfriend Rory was tamed by scholarly, type-A, Rory, so Jess found himself seated around the Gilmore living room coffee table surrounded by big mugs full of cocoa and piles of homework. He looked longingly at their laptops sitting together. Even snuggling up to each other on the sofa while they each penned their own respective novel would be a dream compared to the mountains of homework Rory wanted them each to get done.

"Why are we doing homework instead of writing or kissing, again?" Jess asked his girlfriend.

"Because I know for a fact that you've been pushing your homework aside in preference to working on your novel. And while I wholeheartedly approve the great devotion you're showing to your novel, you can't let other important things in life just slide into the background. Technically, you need to do your homework before you work on your novel. Passing your classes and eventually graduating rank just a tiny bit higher than winning NaNoWriMo," Rory said.

Jess looked at Rory with an annoyed face. "I can't tell if you sound more like your mom or my uncle. It's like you sound like a nagging mother, but not my own mom. Now that I think about it, Luke sounds like a nagging mom, too."

Rory threw him a look before sighing and laying her head against his shoulder. He was startled, and felt just the tiniest bit ashamed for guilt-tripping her. "I know. I don't _want_ to be a nagging mother to my boyfriend, but I also can't just stand aside and watch him throw aside his homework and work on something that _I_ practically made you do. I feel responsible if you don't get all your homework done. _I_ know that I have a lot I've let accumulate over the past couple of days, and I do my homework most of the time. On the other hand, you need some kind of personal motivation to get caught up on your homework." She looked up at him with big eyes and said, "Am I an appealing enough motivation?"

"Sure. You'd be even more appealing if you offered me some kind of reward for doing homework on a weekend," Jess prodded. He got the end result he was looking for when Rory pressed her lips against his. Her eyes closed as she drowsily kissed him, letting him provide the speed and passion while she held onto him for dear life.

When they finally broke apart (who knew how many minutes—or hours—had flown by), Jess whispered in a husky voice, "Did I just get all my reward up front, or was that just a taste of what's to come?"

"Your reward is that we'll work on our novels once we've gotten our homework done," Rory said. "That was just a little personal motivation."

"Ah. I see how the conniving female works her schemes," Jess joked.

"So it worked?" Rory asked hopefully.

Jess sighed; he didn't want to admit it, but he nodded. "Yeah. Let's get to work on all this stupid homework."

"Let's," Rory said cheerfully. So Jess swallowed the feeling inside of him that told him to just _bolt_ , and they literally spent four hours doing homework. The homework demanded of Chilton students and Connecticut public school students differed in some ways while were the same in lots of others; both demanded their full attention, especially when they didn't want to give it. They each offered suggestions to the other and kicked the other in the side when the other moaned and laid their head down. Several trips were made to the kitchen for more cocoa. Several CDs were played on the stereo, to offer the right kind of background soundtrack to this epic afternoon. Jess almost fell asleep several times, and threatened to leave a lot, but Rory with her smooth-talking ways (and kissable lips) was able to persuade him to stick it out.

Lorelai and Sookie came through the front door with lots of chatter. They almost didn't notice Rory and Jess at the coffee table until they'd barged into the room. "AHHHH!" Sookie yelled, putting hands to her eyes. "I didn't see anything! If I see anything, I can't _un_ see it!"

"Sookie, they're fine," Lorelai said, calming her friend. She looked at her unamused daughter and her boyfriend and said, "They're . . . doing homework."

"Yes, and that's _all_ we've been doing," Jess said, giving Rory a look.

Rory beamed and Lorelai threw up a hand and said, "Well, then, I'm all for it."

Jess sighed, Rory looked triumphant, Sookie looked sheepish, and Lorelai felt relieved.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	25. November 25th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Pop-Tarts. Or Chauvelin, from The Scarlet Pimpernel.**

Rory sat in the school library. It was a free period; usually she tackled her homework right now. The razor-sharp librarian was strict about Chilton's library's rules, which kept the whisperers and titterers to a minimum. All that could be heard was the intermittent typing on sparsely sprinkled keyboards and the turnings of pages as students rushed headlong into books, being thrust into knowledge before their next test. Finals loomed—well, they were in like four weeks, but Paris made sure everyone understood that not a moment of studying for their last Christmas break finals would go wasted. She breathed down everyone's neck until her mere presence caused people to sweat, shudder, and quickly leave the room.

Rory hoped that Paris would have the same respect for the library as she and everyone else surely had (was it respect for the library or fear of the librarian? An age-old question all students at Chilton asked, but could never truly answer). If Paris knew that Rory was in the library, she must know that she was studying, and studying was at the top of the list of things that Paris Geller didn't criticize. She could rip apart your social life, point out all the awful truths you hated about yourself, and make you feel like you're going to grow up to be a terrific janitor, but she would shut her mouth if you mentioned keywords like 'studying' and 'homework' and 'cramming in for the big test'.

It was a free period; usually Rory tackled her homework right now. But she wasn't! It was all a part of her secret, convoluted, ingenious plan. She'd gotten an acute urge to work on her novel this morning, but school beckoned her to be there early and on time, and so she rushed out, sighing a little even as she felt the laptop burn a hole through her knapsack. All through classes her teachers had to call her name out loud several times to get her attention. She couldn't help it. What was the Byzantine empire that she'd heard tell of every year in school since she was eight, when she was creating the story of people's lives here?! She _had_ to put pen to paper.

For wanting to be a journalist, Rory found herself surprised by how much she liked writing about her own made-up characters. But Paris Geller was _wrong_. (Rory only said that because she didn't want to be wrong and didn't want to admit that Paris was right. Giving one to Paris was as much as giving a thousand to anyone else.)

When the coast was clear, Rory snuck off into the library to get in some much needed writing (and some much needed snacking. Pop-Tarts aren't as filling as she and her mom pretended they were. You needed to eat at least two before you felt slightly full, and Rory had grabbed a broken _one_ from the tin foil that rushed morning). Outside of the library, she cornered a trash can and unwrapped several little snack cakes. She found the napkin she'd hidden the Pop-Tart in. She lined the inside of her cardigan pocket with it, and then smushed the little snack cakes in. (It wasn't ideal, but the librarian's ears would prick at the sound of rustling plastic wrapping like a lion hears the soft step of a gazelle.) _Then_ Rory entered the chilly Chilton library.

Her escapade went swimmingly thus far. She parked herself far away from the front desk and worked merrily away at her novel. Her two traveling lovers were now hitch-hiking/bumming off rides through Europe. Sometimes even her own want of writing couldn't be overridden by her human nature. Sometimes she'd stop writing, take a pinch of chocolate cupcakes like Chauvelin would take a pinch of snuff, and sigh to herself as she ate her chocolate fingers. _She_ wanted to go to Europe. It was one thing to talk to Grandma and Grandpa about it on Friday evenings, to get a secondhand account of the old world and its many centuries of history and life. It was yet another thing to write about something you've never experienced yourself and yet _still_ being envious of your characters.

Lost in this little bubble all to herself, full of junk food and longing and writing, Rory was startled by the sudden appearance of Paris Geller. "Wow! Way to give me a heart attack!" Rory said, shuddering. She swore, Paris was a randomly materializing ghoul.

Paris didn't even blink. "I don't think you're physically capable of having heart attacks. You're too young and healthy, however the smushed junk food would say otherwise."

Rory defensively covered her pocket with her hand. Before she could say a word, the librarian peered around the corner and shrilly shushed them. It was like a harsh dog whistle, for children. They bowed their heads and barely resisted covering their ears. They turned back to the table.

"She could make a good career out of training sheep dogs," Paris said.

"Paris, what are you doing here? I'm doing stuff," Rory whispered hotly.

"What kind of stuff?" Paris asked, undeterred.

"Writing . . . stuff," Rory said, brushing hair behind her ear and failing to look inconspicuous.

Paris was not so easily put off. "I don't see any textbooks, so it can't be _homework_ , like you usually do at this time of day—"

"What, are you stalking me, now?"

"Not a bad assessment, except that it can be immediately shut down with the obvious: I study with you sometimes. When? At this time of the day. Where? Here. With whom? You. _Duh._ " Rory was unnerved by the fact that Paris didn't blink at all; she was really unperturbable.

"You're not by any chance working on anything for the _Franklin_ , are you?" Paris asked, her voice only slightly lifted by this far-flung hope.

"Why would I be doing such an absurd thing as that?" The teasing disappeared from Rory's face when Paris didn't get her joke. "I've worked on my article, Paris. Just, I'm not right now."

"You're working on your novel, aren't you?" Paris accused. "I'm getting this kind of vibe from you, Gilmore, like the _Franklin_ is your boyfriend while you're texting your novel on the side. You get what I'm saying?"

"Unfortunately," Rory said.

"Well," Paris sighed, "since you seem to be permanently fixated on this piece of fiction, I've taken it upon myself to perform the mandatory duties of a friend." Paris dragged the laptop away from Rory and set it in front of her, almost shoving Rory out of her seat as she sat down.

"Paris, what are you doing?" Rory asked, alarmed.

"Your red eyes are obviously strained from several listless hours of staring at the computer screen. I wouldn't be surprised if you need glasses when you get older. All the sentences mean nothing to you; the words are swimming right in front of you," Paris said.

"I don't know if you're trying to trip me up or confuse me or something, Paris, but it's not going to work. Give me back my laptop," Rory demanded, pulling it toward her.

"All I'm saying is that your novel needs an editor just as much as any newspaper needs an editor to edit its articles," Paris said, grabbing the laptop.

"Wait, you want to be my editor?" Rory was so surprised that Paris snuck the laptop away from her grasp quite easily that time.

Paris sighed. "If you're going to be texting this new boy, I might as well get a sense of who he is. I want to see if he's right for you."

"Aw, that's so concerned and friend-like of you," Rory said, even as Paris raced to the top of her manuscript and began to read it.

She shook her head immediately. "No, this isn't good," she said, shaking her head.

"What?" Rory wondered, instantly worried. She stood up and looked over Paris's shoulder. "What is it?"

Paris didn't even ask permission before she began to rip into the flesh of the novel. "No comma is needed here. Sure, why use a period when a semicolon could do the job far more effectively? This entire paragraph needs to go. It makes your main character sound griping and holier-than-thou. Have you even _heard_ of italics? Oh," Paris frowned, "you did. There's a whole regular novel's worth in this page alone."

"You know this is just a rough draft, right? These are _completely_ unfiltered thoughts. Even _I_ haven't read it all," Rory said. "Only Jess has kept up with it."

"Then he's a sucky boyfriend, or whatever he is to you. He's let you get away with this atrocious attempt at forming communicative, story-telling sentences out of the English language. If English wasn't your first language, some leniency could be spared. But it's not, so you know, this is unacceptable." Paris looked up at Rory with her harsh words and a calm face. She offered a hand out. "Can I have a cupcake?"

Rory sighed, angry at Paris, but she wrestled out a mostly-not smashed cupcake. Paris regarded it with a slight frown before deciding it better to say nothing and ate it slowly as she killed Rory's darlings.

Rory hovered anxiously over Paris's shoulder, like a mother watching a doctor tsk-tsk darkly yet coolly over their precious child. The only thing that could dissuade Paris from her merciless killings was the welcome sound of the bell and the call to the next class.

"That was awful. How do you get A's, again?" Paris asked, getting up.

"Like I said, _rough draft_. As in, I haven't edited it _at all_ ," Rory said, not very happy with Paris at the moment.

Paris looked at Rory like she was a different person. "Still," she mused. Then she brightened. "I look forward to reading the rest of it."

 **Thanks for reading. Review?**


	26. November 26th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls. Or Around the World in Eighty Days. Or Beauty and the Beast. Or, come to think of it, Walmart.**

Rory stepped out of the house bundled against the late November cold. In her backpack were several books and her laptop; she held a well-worn copy of _Around the World in Eighty Days_. She locked the door and walked down the steps before habitually turning back to her place in the book.

It was the middle of the morning on a _Tuesday_ , of all days. But, it was two days before Thanksgiving. Rory was glad that the rest of the week was school-free. Her thoughts left Chilton and fell into the lives of Phileas Fogg, Passepartout, and Princess Aouda.

The streets of Stars Hollow were so friendly, and the town really so small, that everyone cared for everyone else. At least three cars stopped or slowed down so that they wouldn't hit Rory Gilmore as she walked into the heart of town, her head stuck in a book.

Morey and Babette watched her walk down their road from their front window. "Ah, there goes Rory. I wonder how that book of hers is coming along. Maybe not so well, if she's gone on to read someone else's story," Babette mused as she dried a baking dish Morey had just washed.

"Maybe she's taking a break," Morey suggested.

Babette didn't sound wholly convinced that Rory hadn't talked big of her hopes and dreams, but let them slip away at a glimpse of reality, when she said, "Yeah, well, maybe she is."

Rory, oblivious of her neighbors' talk about her, turned the page. She barely registered the rustle of leaves or the smell of wind or the distinct lack of birds due to their winter migration. She heard maybe a toot of a horn or a friendly cry of two friends meeting each other in the street, but she never _heard_ them. She was lost in India.

She entered Stars Hollow at a very busy time. Thanksgiving was in two days, and everyone knew it. Decorations of pumpkins and fall leaves and scarecrow cutouts decorated every shop window. Bales of hay left over from the Autumn Festival created stumbling blocks for those unwary as they walked down the sidewalks of Stars Hollow.

Andrew noticed Rory when he looked out the window of his bookshop. It did his heart good to see a kid of the next generation reading a book. Still, "She should look where she's going."

Rory passed by busy Doose's market. The entire place was filled to bursting with neighbors stockpiling on all their Thanksgiving essentials; cans of pumpkin weighed down baskets, cranberries were on everyone's list, and frozen turkeys threatened to slip from grasps and slide across the floor. People were bumping into each other and someone tipped over an entire display of stacked canned green beans, to Taylor's great annoyance. He yelled for Dean to help him, and the two, kneeling, collected the cans and stacked them once again.

"This is a mess, and during the busiest shopping week of the year, too. The inconvenience is considerable. Honestly, can people _not_ look where they're going, or am I asking too much? Really, is that _sooo_ much to ask for?" Taylor complained. He looked up to see his employee not paying him a single whet of attention. "Dean? Dean!"

Dean stared out the window. Besides a flower stall bursting with gorgeous autumnal blooms, was Rory. She stopped her otherwise ceaseless walking to stand by the flowers and inhale their beautiful scent. The powerful forces of the relentless flowers were the only things to burst through her book-filled mind. So now she stood still, stopped to smell the roses, _and_ read from her book.

Dean hated the thump of his heart, even as his blood ran red with pent-up anger. He hated the sight of her, mostly because every time he saw her, he felt red-hot angry and red-hot hurt and red-hot embarrassed all over again.

"Dean! Dean!" Finally, Taylor's loud voice couldn't be ignored. It penetrated through Dean's hot, dazed mind, until he looked back, startled, at his annoyed boss.

"It's two days until the biggest food holiday of the year and you're, what? Daydreaming? Staring out the window? Dreaming of freedom? You're not going to get freedom if we don't get the lines down from five people deep! What are you even looking at?" Taylor searched past his seasonal ears of dried corn and cutout pilgrims to find Rory still standing there. He 'ah-haed', but otherwise said nothing on the subject. To Dean's relief, really. He didn't want to hear Taylor Doose say in a loud voice (not really yelling, but definitely loud enough for every single person in his small store to hear), "Oh, _I_ see. Rory Gilmore, eh? You know, after that big scene you made at the dance marathon, anyone would've thought you'd never want to see her again. And yet she makes you halt what you're doing, _on the clock_ , and stare at her."

Thankfully, Taylor said nothing of the sort (even if he _did_ think it). He merely frowned and said as he stood up, "Nose stuck in a book. Traffic hazard. If she gets hit one of these days, it won't be this town's fault for lack of pedestrian traffic signs."

Taylor hurried away to check on his supply of frozen turkeys and Dean hated himself for one last little glimpse at Rory before seizing control of himself and forcing himself to get back to work.

Sookie caught a glance at Rory wandering down the sidewalks, head lost in a different world. Sookie had run home for more aluminum foil and her copper roasting pans ("I may not have any power over a boiling fat of oil and our Thanksgiving turkey, but _no_ turkey is getting roasted for our guests at the Independence Inn in _anything_ other than my copper roasting pans!") She paused at her gate and smiled to herself. Rory was so very much like Lorelai, and very, truly different. Lorelai would never get so involved in a novel, but Lorelai _would_ wander through the little streets of Stars Hollow without paying the slightest attention as to where she was walking.

Sookie was glad that Rory was taking a much-needed break from school and _writing_ a story to _enjoy_ a story.

Rory walked into a streetlamp, making Sookie cringe. Rory walked away unscathed, though, so Sookie felt relieved.

Rory yawned, lifting her head and looking around as if waking up from sleep. She walked a green light to the town square and sat down on one of the benches. The chill air fought against her gloves, scarf, and jacket. She ignored it and everything else until a warm body sat down next to her, touching her entire side and drawing her eyes over to him.

"Hey, what are you doing out here in the middle of the day?" Rory asked, excited to see her boyfriend.

"'Hi' to you, too. I got off from school. What do you think?" Jess asked.

"I thought that maybe you would be at the Diner, or working at Walmart or something," Rory said lamely. Maybe she _should_ have expected her boyfriend to come find her on an off-day from school.

"Nope. Luke gave me the day off. I'm going to help out on Thanksgiving, though, then do an awful Black Friday shift at Walmart," Jess grimaced.

Rory was instantly sympathetic. "Oh, Jess, I'm sorry. That sucks."

"Really puts a damper on the holiday spirit." Jess picked another subject, nodding to her book. "Which time is this?"

"My fourth time." Rory wore the smile she wore when the topic of conversation was about something she loved. "I'm really appreciating the whole 'going-around-the-world' bit this time around."

"Shouldn't you be working on your novel?" Jess asked.

"Well, shouldn't you be working on yours?" Rory combatted.

Both knew they were mirroring their hello's of a moment ago; they liked the callback.

"I clocked in a couple thousand words this morning," Jess said, sticking one hand in his pocket and wrapping his free arm around his girlfriend's shoulder. "So I'm free the rest of the day."

"Funny; I'm the same. I brought my laptop, though, in case we want to get ahead." Rory indicated the backpack beside her.

"Nah," Jess said, looking into her eyes. "Let's just . . . stay here. Together. Read . . . or talk . . . or just be together."

Rory's smile sent Jess's cool heart a-thumpin'. "I'd like that," she said.

"Oh, Luke, look at Rory and Jess," Miss Patty called from her window seat at the Diner. Luke reluctantly walked over to her, wondering what it was _now_ that was happening with those two. He poured some more coffee into her mug and looked out to where her gesturing finger pointed. He saw the two kids sitting together on a bench in the square, Jess looking over Rory's shoulder at some book. The November air was nothing to them as they exchanged little looks, little glances as they kept looking up from the book at each other, exchanging little smiles like it was habit.

"They're something," Miss Patty observed. "I don't know what they are. I hardly think either of _them_ knows what they are. But my, they are something."

Luke didn't say anything, even though he agreed with Miss Patty. He just stood there, watching Jess and Rory, and smiling to himself.

"Yeah, I guess they are," he finally admitted. He went behind the counter and made a new carafe of coffee, 'cause at some point Rory, being a Gilmore, would make a beeline for the Diner for coffee, and he'd be ready when she dragged her boyfriend in with her.

 **The whole 'the entire town commenting on the girl walking around reading' bit was a little take off Beauty and the Beast, LOL.**

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	27. November 27th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls, the $64,000 Question, or Charlie Brown.**

"Do you want to hear the funniest slash weirdest slash _WHAT_ thing that's happened all day?" Lorelai asked Rory when Rory walked up to the front desk of the Independence Inn.

"Hello to you, too, and how is _WHAT_ any different from weird? Shouldn't they mean the same thing and thus mean that you don't have to say both but just one or the other?" Rory said, planting her arms on the desk.

"No, they are _completely_ different meaning words slash adjectives. Weird means that this thing was out of the ordinary, and _WHAT_ is _totally_ how you are going to react to this newest occurrence," Lorelai explained.

"An occurrence? I thought it was a thing," Rory mused.

"It's not. It was a happening. I heard it all. It was very exciting," Michel said, coming around the desk beside Lorelai. He smiled at Rory. "Why, hello, Rory! How good to see you. Have you done any more work on your novel since the last time we spoke?"

Rory reached into her backpack and pulled out her laptop. "There have been a few astonishing twists and turns. I'm sure you'll be very pleased with it. The password is annakarenina, all lowercase. And I _will_ need it back later to tack on another one-thousand-sixty-seven words."

"Yes, yes, yes, very nice. Au revoir," and Michel slid down to the far end of the desk to get his latest romantic drama fix.

"Well, now I know your laptop password in case I ever want to be a sneaking, invading-personal-privacy mom," Lorelai said observantly.

"Feel free to," Rory said invitingly.

Lorelai was instantly suspicious. "Why this casual invitation? Is it some trick you play on your poor, unsuspecting mother?"

"I know you don't know how to spell Karenina," Rory said breezily.

"That's not true! I can spell it! It's just the two names Karen and Nina put together! Duh!" Lorelai said.

Rory nodded slowly to herself. "You keep telling yourself that," Rory said cheerfully.

"So, minor backtrack to an earlier thought: you're letting _Michel_ read your book? I mean, really?" Lorelai said.

"He's the only one who seems as equally interested in it as much as myself or Jess," Rory said thoughtfully. "I respond well to other's enthusiasm."

"Why does he like it so much, though? The only things I know Michel loves for sure are his mother, France, and adorable little puppies. Does your novel feature Michel's mother in France with a bunch of adorable little puppies?" Lorelai wondered.

"That is oddly specific and pertains only to Michel, so, no, my novel is totally devoid of all those things. Except France. I wrote a little café scene in especially for him. I knew it would make him happy."

"Are you somehow trying to pay him back for me abusing him all these years? Like giving him ice cream to excuse the sins of your fathers?" Lorelai wondered.

"No, I'm not. I just like seeing him happy. But I must now ask: is the happening slash occurrence slash thing having to do with my fathers, as in generational fathers like Dad or Grandpa? Or maybe Grandma?" A sudden realization flashed into Rory's mind, and she slammed her hands down on the desk as she said, looking at her mother with a happy face, "You talked to Grandma, didn't you?!"

"I didn't 'talk' to Grandma. She came barging in her, right into Sookie's kitchen (the day before Thanksgiving, too, honestly; and your grandmother prides herself on having manners), and demands that you and I go over to see her and grandpa tomorrow for Thanksgiving."

"Mom, that's four thanksgivings," Rory said, mortified. "I mean, I'm totally glad that Grandma apologized and everything but, Mom, _four_ Thanksgivings."

"Oh, you're saying that like Emily Gilmore came over here to apologize! Well, she didn't! She didn't! She just—just demanded our presence at the Gilmore household for Thanksgiving."

"I have a feeling she said more than that she just _demanded_ for us to come visit her and Grandpa. What else did she say?" Rory wanted to know.

Lorelai sighed. "She called me out on my ignoring her on the phone—"

"But you were doing that so well. However did she catch on?"

"Don't mock your mother. And she said that she wasn't the one who set the meeting at Yale up behind my back, and that since I've been sick for the past two Fridays, we should come to dinner."

"You haven't been sick. You've been waiting for them to apologize to you. Which, you know, would've worked out better if you hadn't been ignoring their calls," Rory pointed out.

"I know, but I had to come up with a better excuse for us not coming on Friday nights besides 'I'm mad at you guys and until you stop acting childish and really apologize, I don't want to come over anymore', obviously," Lorelai said, folding her arms.

"Says the petulant mother as she folds her arms and makes garbling noises into the phone, childishly," Rory pointed out.

"Funny, those were her exact words during our conversation. Were you there, like, eavesdropping?"

"No. I've heard you make the noises. 'Garbled' is the only word for them."

"Huh. So, um, yeah, we have four Thanksgivings to go to tomorrow, and there's, like, no hope of getting out of the Gilmore one, especially since your grandparents will be out of town until next year, which is, you know, the best Christmas present _ever_."

"Oh no, Grandma and Grandpa won't be here for Christmas? When are they leaving?" Rory wanted to know.

"I don't know. Probably the end of this month, which means like, Friday or Saturday. Why? We have great Christmases here in Stars Hollow that rival many a well-decorated yet painfully decorous Christmas in stuck-up Hartford, thank you very much."

"I _do_ like our Christmases in Stars Hollow, but you know, I always liked visiting them back when the only time we saw Grandma and Grandpa was around the holidays. I'll miss seeing them then because, will it really seem like Christmas Eve or New Year's Day without Grandma and Grandpa?"

"Ah, kid, of course it will. They'll send us a very prim and proper Christmas card like they will every year, because argument or no argument, those two Gilmores are prim and proper to the very end," Lorelai said, leaning over the desk and holding Rory's hands in hers. "They'll also send you very big and well-wrapped Christmas presents bedazzled in big bows while I get some nice little gift that's really some snide remark about their views on my life choices. Don't you worry; they'll be there, even if they're not in the state, or heck, even in the country."

"Don't you know where they're going?" Rory asked, a little alarmed.

"She may or may not have told me. I've mentally blocked it out, whatever it is. So, happy? Did Mommy explain away all the bad, leaving nothing but the good?" Lorelai teased good-naturedly.

"You explained _almost_ all of the bad away. The thing is, what I wanted to do when I finished NaNoWriMo, besides find you to perform an impromptu happy dance—"

"How can it be impromptu if you're planning to do it three days in advance?"

"—was call Grandma and Grandpa and tell them the news myself. I know that they'd be really happy if I did that. I don't even know if I have Grandma's cellphone number. Wait, does Grandma even have a cellphone?"

"Unfortunately, she does. I'll make sure you guys get your numbers exchanged. You know, in case of emergency," Lorelai said.

Behind them came sudden gasps and such utterances as, " _Sacré bleu!_ Oh no, she _didn't_! Oh no, yes she _did_!" and many other French swears and cries.

"You must really have churned out something dramatic to get such a reaction of Michel," Lorelai said.

"Apparently I did. Which reminds me: I need to write for today, and maybe try to get ahead on tomorrow's daily dose. _Four_ Thanksgivings, Mom."

"I know." Excitement bloomed out of Lorelai's face, making her glow. "Isn't it great? Isn't it all your dreams come true? The rest of America has only one Thanksgiving a year, but here we have _four_ in _one whole day_! Now that's what I call _stuffed_."

"It's one of the more insane things we'll have done, but not impossible," Rory reasoned.

Lorelai just now looked at what Rory was wearing. "What's with the Chilton get-up? I thought you had off all week except for Monday."

"We had today 'cause of the _Franklin_ and a food drive. It weren't many regular classes. Just a lot of extra stuff they lumped all into one day, a couple of quizzes and labs. We got early release."

"Hey, now _that's_ something to be thankful for," Lorelai teased. "Meet up later at Luke's? We can plan out our idea for conquering the $64,000 question of how to go to four Thanksgivings in one day _and_ write out our Black Friday shopping schedule."

"You know I love me some Black Friday shopping scheduling," Rory teased.

"Ah, but it's nice to have the same problem as Charlie Brown, even twice it. Life rarely goes the way it does in cartoons, where everything is much simpler and funnier, and makes more noises like 'Boink' and 'Crash!'" Lorelai said. She jerked her head over to Michel. "I think the only way you're going to get your laptop back is by prying it from his cold dead hands." She put a hand on Rory's hand and said, "Good luck, kid," before hurrying away to check on Sookie and her kitchen micromanagement.

Rory sighed as she squared her shoulders and prepared to go into battle. She would have no qualms taking her laptop back from Michel; she just needed the strength to pry it away from him.

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **(I won today. :))**


	28. November 28th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

"Four Thanksgiving dinners. _Four_ Thanksgiving dinners. Four _Thanksgiving_ dinners!" Rory couldn't help repeating to herself as she and her mom stumbled home after their dream day of feasting.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch a single word of that. Do you mind repeating yourself? What are you trying to tell me?" Lorelai said, leaning in to Rory with a hand cupped at her ear.

"Mom, there's no time for jokes. We have to get home as soon as physically possible," Rory said, even as her tired legs were held back from their true potential by the Thanksgivings weighing down on her stomach.

"I'd say we did a good day's work here today. Next year we should do five, just to go for the record," Lorelai said happily. She was of good cheer, since they ended their nomadic feastings at Luke's cozy diner, her favorite one-spot-Thanksgiving shop of all.

"I don't want to hear another word about Thanksgiving until at least next year, okay? My stomach hurts at the mere thought," Rory groaned.

"Ah, you're a big ol' sissy. You didn't go that hard. You could've eaten the rolls if you'd really wanted to. You have the capability and the room in the stomach, but not the belief in yourself, or the will to," Lorelai declared.

"I'm pretty sure I have _no_ room in my stomach. Believe me, setting aside the rolls wasn't a force of will. _I_ was just being practical. Really, I'm a very thin person. My stomach is at least four times the size it should be. It's already abnormal. Excuse me if I couldn't take the rolls," Rory said.

"Sookie made croissants," Lorelai sighed, both luxuriously and sadly. "Mrs. Kim had this egg bread with egg substitute in it that looked _insane_. The Gilmores served their guests big hearty dinner rolls, AKA the most boring of all bread."

"They looked so soft, though," Rory moaned in memory, "like a pillow. Imagine a pillow, dyed yellow with melted butter. Doesn't that sound amazing? I should've asked for a doggy bag."

"Like Mom and Dad need another reason to look at us like we eat like pigs," Lorelai scoffed.

"But we do eat like pigs. And usually, we're proud of it. You've been particularly proud of it the past two days. We _can_ be proud of it. Who else do we know besides ourselves who could've eaten _four_ huge Thanksgiving dinners in one day? Thanksgiving dinners that are meant as _one_ meal, as the _biggest_ meal of the year. We have consumed enough calories to sustain our bodies for a whole week! We _have_ eaten like pigs!" Rory declared.

Lorelai wrapped an arm around her daughter, smiling as they feebly walked into their neighborhood. "It's a good thing I got you, kid. You keep me focused; eyes on the prize, visualizing the goal and all that. You're right. We _did_ eat like pigs."

"Yeah. Still wish I had a doggy bag full of rolls, though," Rory said.

"Hmmmm, I just think you imagined that Mom and Dad's bread rolls were that good. I think I saw someone chip their tooth on them."

Rory made a face and they walked a few more steps before Lorelai groaned. "Why did we _walk_ everywhere today? Why did we make the conscious choice to try to get in some exercise and burn away the week's worth of calories we consumed?"

"The idealistic version of us made that choice. Now the realistic version of us have to pay the price. Things could be worse, though. We could've made the bad choice of walking to Hartford to see Grandma and Grandpa," Rory pointed out.

"Hey, that's true. That could've been really fun, though. We could've worn bright track suits and headbands and walked around with dumbbells and pretend to jog when really we're just walking really, really fast. Imagine us, just going up, up, up the Hartford highway. It would've been the Connecticut Thanksgiving Day Parade."

"Like you'd want to actually walk the fifteen miles to Hartford," Rory said.

"The idealistic version of me is still here, even as the realistic version of me has sour feet," Lorelai conceded.

"I would have to concur with both of them, as they are both my mother," Rory said.

They walked on in silence until they reached the path to their house. Lorelai said, getting out her keys, "So, let's get some sleep. Our plan starts at one-thirty in the morning."

"Operation: Black Friday. I'll really hoping to score on some new books this year," Rory said, shivering in her jacket as Lorelai fussed with the front door.

"I've got some new shoes on my list, a new purse or two, some Christmas presents for the best kid in the world—"

"Who is this kid, this _best_ kid in the world?"

"Ugh, you would not want to meet her," Lorelai groaned. "She's so much better at everyone at everything that she makes you feel inadequate. I live with her, so I know."

"Mom! I am not so much better at everything than everyone else!" Rory said, mortified, teasing, and flattered all at once.

"Also, she's like _way_ modest and nice and has little birds and squirrels sing to her and bring her flowers when she brushes her hair in the mornings," Lorelai continued, letting them in and discarding her coat as she fell limply onto the couch.

"I think I may have heard of her. She lives with this witch who constantly performs spells on herself to stay forever young, and has a collection of countless shoes and magazines," Rory said, hanging up her coat before flopping down next to her mom, leaning her head against her shoulder.

"Wow, she sounds awful to live with. How do they stand each other?" Lorelai said, closing her eyes as she snuggled against Rory's shoulder.

Rory yawned. "Who knows?" she said, closing her eyes as she let herself fall asleep.

They woke up several hours later. Several hours later being at around eleven o'clock.

"Ugh. I think we were just in a food coma," Lorelai groaned as she sat up. Her hair was disheveled and her makeup very old.

"No, Mommy, just five more minutes," Rory pleaded.

"No, Rory," Lorelai said, sighing as she stood up. "We need to get up. We both—I mean, presumably both, since I can't see myself—look like zombies. Get up, brush your teeth, brush your hair, and at least throw on some pajamas before you go to bed. And hurry! We gotta get up in two hours."

"I don't wanna get up now _or_ in two hours. I wanna sleep!" Rory said petulantly, sleep controlling her mind. All her wants, hopes, and dreams, flew out the window. Nothing could be more soul-satisfying than the sweet release of letting herself remain comfortable and cozy as she was, asleep.

Then she bolted up. "NaNoWriMo." She sprang up from the sofa. "NaNoWriMo!"

Lorelai looked at her, confused, as Rory skittered against the kitchen floor, racing into her room. "You're speaking gibberish, Rory. You really need another two hours of sleep," Lorelai called. She yawned as she took the coffee carafe to the sink and filled it up. She had the idea of setting the coffeemaker up so that in two hours they'd have some delicious caffeine brewed to carry them through their long cold night. She yawned again and the water ran over the top of her carafe for a good minute before she finally woke up enough to turn off the water and trip over to the coffeemaker.

Lorelai dumped the ground coffee instead of measuring it out (she emptied the bag, so it'd be strong. That was good enough) and stumbled over to lean against Rory's bedroom doorway. She found her kid now fully awake and typing as fast as humanly possible on her laptop.

"Oh, NaNoWriMo. _Now_ I remember. Sorry, my mind is having a hard time even comprehending regular words that aren't acronyms made up of half-words," Lorelai said. "I thought you did some extra yesterday, so you wouldn't have to write today."

"No, I wrote _some_ yesterday, but not enough. I have to get to forty-six-thousand-six-hundred-sixty-six words by the end of tonight, or I'll be running behind. And I can't run behind; not when both the finish line _and_ the far more looming deadline will be here in two days!" Rory said, speaking fast while punctuating each word with a little pause as she slammed her fingers against the keyboard, trying in vain to keep two distinct voices—her writing one and her mom's speaking one—separate in her mind. "And now after we come stumbling home from Black Friday shopping I'll be so tired that I'll fall asleep, and then I have to catch up on _tomorrow_ , and what if it just builds up so that I can never catch up, and—and what if I don't win? What if all of this was for nothing? What if, after _everything_ , I don't win NaNoWriMo?" Rory slammed her fingers on her computer before turning to her mother, panic in her eyes.

Lorelai wore a soft, sympathetic, motherly look on her face. "Rory, the thing you need to do right now is sleep. I know it is the _last_ thing you want to do right now, despite how tempting it looked two minutes ago. You'll drive yourself crazy doing this. If you don't go to your bed, you'll fall asleep at your computer. Why not get a couple of hours' sleep? You _will_ catch up tomorrow." Lorelai came and put her arms around her daughter, kissing her hair. "Okay?"

"Okay," Rory said, not sounding convinced.

"And if you don't, we're not going Black Friday shopping," Lorelai said quietly.

Rory got up. "Goodnight!"

Lorelai smiled to herself. "Goodnight, Rory. Actually, like, sleep, okay?"

"I will," Rory said

Rory sounded convincing. Lorelai believed her and closed her door.

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	29. November 29th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

The Gilmore Girls' Black Friday shopping escapade lasted _way_ longer than anticipated. They'd planned on hitting about five different stores and being home around seven. Instead, Lorelai went off-road with she had the inspired idea to hit the mall. So they hit three malls, filled up the Jeep to bursting, and crossed off every single Christmas gift they had planned to give out that year.

They pulled up to Luke's Diner at eleven AM and stumbled inside. However high they were on excitement and adrenaline, they weren't going to last like that all day. As Luke poured their coffee, he said, "You two are going to crash so hard when you get home."

"Hmmm, let's hope so. We need to regulate our sleeping schedule, or we'll be topsy turvy all week," Lorelai said, quickly guzzling down the welcome shot of caffeine. "It's like jet-lag."

"Count on you two to get jet-lag without being within twelve miles of an airport," Luke commented slyly.

"How many hours of sleep do you think we'll need to get back to normal?" Rory asked. "Do you think we'll drop dead of sleep instantly when we get home, or could I write enough to catch up before losing consciousness?"

"Well, to answer the _first_ question, it would depend on what kind of sleep we got when we got home last night. We got a good five hours, but it wasn't a normal five hours. It was a deep, tired, bone-weary, really-needed-it kind of sleep. So that counts for double, so that's like, ten. Plus the two hours we got between eleven and one last night—"

"But those were like really weak hours. It felt like a minute had passed since I'd closed my eyes when I woke up. We can't count those two hours."

"Didn't your body sleep for two hours? It counts as two hours of rest," Lorelai argued.

"But I was still tired when I got up, which means I didn't get enough rest, which means I didn't get the usual amount of rest I should've gotten from two hours, which means that we can't count it," Rory argued.

"How come you get to decide the effectiveness of sleep?"

"Because it was my body that did the actual sleeping and felt its effects," Rory said, as Luke popped back by.

"All right, mid-morning snack time. Or was it brunch? Don't tell me this is breakfast for you guys," Luke said. His voice was so serious but words so teasing it was hard to tell what he really meant.

Lorelai stared at the food he brought. There were grapefruit halves, fun yogurt with granola and cinnamon and fruit, and smoothies. "Luke, Luke, hey, Luke," Lorelai called, drawing him back before he fled the scene too quickly. She swiveled a finger over their food. "What's this? We ordered pancakes and sausage gravy and biscuits."

"I know. But you can't be _that_ hungry after yesterday," Luke said, shrugging.

"Um, _yeah_ we can. Who just spent ten hours walking around malls?" Lorelai pointed at her and Rory. "Um, _these_ guys. We need _carbs_ , not an athlete's breakfast."

"I'm sorry, I thought you were just bragging about walking around for ten hours. Exercise, hmm, maybe you're athletes or something," Luke said before hurrying away.

Lorelai bristled and wrinkled her nose at the offering. Rory picked up her spoon and dived in. "Come on. It's not his most delicious stuff, but it'll be good for us. A sort of purge to clean out our systems."

"Sounds like he needs to clean out _his_ system," Lorelai said, picking up her fork and half-heartedly poking her grapefruit.

Rory gave her a look. "That doesn't make any sense."

"I know. I need sleep. Which we _are_ doing as soon as we get home, big scary NaNoWriMo looming over your head or not." Lorelai gave Rory a look. "You'll wake up totally refreshed and get caught up then. In the meantime, eat up. Well, eat as much as you can."

Rory had yogurt and granola in her mouth when her mom said, "If he _really_ wanted clean out our Thanksgiving-food-clogged systems, he would've given us bran muffins."

"Mom," Rory groaned.

* * *

They got home at half-past and mumbled 'goodnights' to each other as, letting what shopping bags they could hold slip from their arms, they went and flopped headfirst onto their beds.

Rory woke at half past five, rolled over, and groaned. She walked into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve over the heel of her hand, and actually drank some water in lieu of coffee, a true miracle. She got out her laptop and went to join her mom, whom she found sitting on their living room couch; she was flipping through channels showing old holiday movies the networks were thrilled to finally start airing.

"Hey, Rory. Did you get some good sleep? Like, energizing, I-feel-better-than-I-thought-would, non-sluggish sleep?" Lorelai wondered.

"Yes, yes I did. How about you?"

"Slept like a baby. It helped when I remembered that I don't have to be at the Independence Inn until tomorrow."

"I thought inn managers gets no rest."

"I thought that was evil, and that you had good grammar," Lorelai said.

"If I used good grammar, the quote wouldn't have worked as well," Rory said in defense.

"Hmm, I guess." Without a word, Lorelai watched TV while Rory fell to NaNoWriMo. She'd gotten a couple hundred words written up in her panicked frenzy last night but had to make up the rest of yesterday _and_ get today's done. And then, tomorrow . . . tomorrow would be the day. Tomorrow she would win, 'cause tomorrow was the last day of NaNoWriMo, and whenever Rory Gilmore set her mind to something, she accomplished it. She didn't need extra days. She always aced the test and got all A's.

A knock on the door a few minutes later pulled her hyper-focus away from her computer. Lorelai turned the TV volume low. "You expecting someone?" she wondered.

"Funny, I was going to ask you that same thing," Rory said.

The same knock, again. They looked at each other.

"This is weird. Halloween was four weeks ago," Lorelai said. She looked over her shoulder and called, "Come in."

"Come in? It could be anyone. This is why we have curtains over our windows, so we're covered as we peek through them to look at the people knocking on our door at this time of day," Rory said, as the front door opened.

"At this time of day? It's almost dinnertime. Besides, it's probably Babette. You know we know more than half the people in this town." Lorelai gave Rory an especial look when Jess loomed in the spot between the foyer and the living room, giving them an awkward attempt at a wave. "Look, it's the burglar you were scared I was just _letting_ into the house. Do you want me to kick him back out?"

"No," Rory said, putting down her laptop and hopping up to Jess, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Hey! How was your Black Friday shift?"

"Grueling. How was your Black Friday shopping?" he asked, amused.

"Efficient. We got what we wanted and more. I have a feeling we spent more than you made, which I kind of regret now more than I did at the moment," Rory admitted.

"If you'd hesitated, the deals would've flown out the door before you could make up your mind," Lorelai said, getting up. She nodded at Jess. "Hey, Jess."

"Hey," he said. He held out a paper bag with a folded-over top. "Here. Luke sent this. Leftovers."

"Ohhhh! See, Rory, he _was_ just joking this morning," Lorelai said. She held the paper bag like a precious treasure and giggled as she skipped into the kitchen.

"Oh, I feel full at the mere thought of Thanksgiving food. We were gonna give it until next year 'til we brought up it up again," Rory explained.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have brought it," Jess said quickly, taking a step back.

"No, no, it's totally cool. Especially if there are rolls. I need my fix of rolls," Rory said, pulling him closer.

"You're the only person who's ever said that, or who will ever say that, ever," Jess informed her. Then he kissed her.

Then Lorelai's voice burst out. "It'll be a few minutes, but it'll be warmed soon."

Rory broke apart to catch her breath and said, "Thanks, Mom." She put her hand at Jess's cheek, softening. "Let's sit down. I need to write.

"So," she said as he took a seat next to her, "how far are you in your writing? Almost done?"

"Um, done, actually," Jess said, not meeting her eyes.

Rory froze. "Wait, you're . . . done? So soon? How?"

"Well," Jess said, sighing as he settled down, hands in his pockets, "I figured that if I didn't really get into it to get it done, it never would. I'd just let it slide. Just not finish it, like a lot of stuff. I wanted to win, though, for your sake, Rory." He looked her in the eye. "You're the one who encouraged me to do it. I couldn't . . . fail you, you know." He looked away, shrugged. "So, I got home from work, sat down, and finished it. Simple as that."

"'Simple as that?' It takes me a while just to get the motivation to write. Jess, Jess," Rory said, holding onto his arm and smiling until he finally caught her eye, "this is _amazing_. You did it! You won NaNoWriMo!"

He smiled despite himself and Lorelai walked into the room. "Where's the fire?" she wondered.

"Jess won NaNoWriMo," Rory said proudly.

Lorelai looked like Rory: surprised but pleased. "Wow, congrats, Jess. Now you have incentive to win, huh, Rory?"

Rory looked at Jess admiringly, and a little jealously. "Yes, yes I do."

 **Thanks for reading! Review?**


	30. November 30th

**_Soli Deo gloria_**

 **DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Gilmore Girls.**

 **Final chapter, you guys!**

Rory arrived at Luke's Diner a girl on a mission. She ordered his strongest coffee and some breakfast to sustain her through the brutal final hour before her. Her table at the window showed off every other young person in Stars Hollow going out on this last day of November. Across several storefronts owners were putting up Christmas decorations—tomorrow, after all, was December first. If Rory looked up from her laptop, she could see Doose's Market getting wreathed in . . . well, wreathes. Taylor argued and yelled and nitpicked as his employees swallowed their annoyance and let him guide their decorating hands. "A little to the left! No, no, that's right! Don't you know the difference?"

Luke didn't mind having a radio playing favorite old Christmas songs in his diner, but he had a strict rule about it, almost as strict as his rule regarding cellphones: no Christmas songs until December. He didn't care if it was less than fifteen hours until December, which it was: no Christmas songs until December.

Still, the light dusting of snow and the cheerful atmosphere of a Saturday morning showed some Christmas spirit reigned anyway. Rory smiled to herself as she typed busily away.

"One cheese and ham omelet with extra cheese, hash browns on the side," Luke said, somehow finding space on the table for her food. "And a bowl of stewed apples with extra cinnamon."

Rory gave him a real compliment by stopping her writing and beaming up at him. "Luke, you're a real national treasure. You know that?"

Luke scoffed. "I wouldn't say . . . that."

"Thanks," she said.

He nodded to her laptop. "Writing your book? Gearing up for the ending? Jess, he, uh, finished yesterday." Luke stuck his hands in his pockets and failed at hiding his extremely happy pride. "Didn't think that he'd actually get to the end, but well, he did. He—he wrote a book." Then he sobered up. "Rory, when Jess first came here, no one, least of all me, thought him capable of writing a book."

"He sure could read one, though. Or seven, in the time it takes a normal person to read one," Rory pointed out, as if to reassure Luke that his nephew hadn't started out nearly as hopelessly as he thought.

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to, you know, thank you, Rory," Luke said, scratching the back of his neck, not meeting her eyes.

"Thank me for what?" Rory said, confused. "I didn't do anything. _Believe me_ , it was all Jess. I had _no_ input in his very good novel-writing."

"You _did_ do something, Rory. You _made_ him do it. Jess . . . he needs motivation to do stuff; sure, he can do anything he sets his mind to, but he needs that extra little push to get him going, you know?"

"Like a catalyst in a scientific reaction?" Rory suggested.

"Exactly! Exactly!" Luke proved himself a little bit of a nerd by not balking at that very specific analogy. "All he needs is there; he just needs a start. A spark to dynamite."

"Seriously, though, Luke," Rory said, "even if I _did_ ask him to do NaNoWriMo, _he_ was the one who decided to do it. He was the one who wrote it. It was _all_ him."

"I-I guess it was," Luke said, sounding more pleased as punch by the minute. "It's just . . . I don't know what to say. It's like I'm proud of him, but I can't tell him."

"Why on Earth can't you tell him?" Rory demanded to know, half out of her seat.

Luke sighed. "You know, it'll go one of two ways. Either he'll just wave me off because he thinks I'm joking or being sarcastic and messing with his head, or he'll get all puffed up and conceited and throw it up in my face at every opportunity. 'How would you know? Have _you_ ever written a book?' You know, that whole spiel. I want him to know that I'm proud of him," Luke said, rolling his hands, "but I don't want him to react negatively to it. See?"

"Well, first of all, I think you should tell him," Rory said, to Luke's immediate scoffing sigh, "because whether or not he reacts the way you want him to, it's something he doesn't hear very often, and he might not look like he cares, but he will. Deep down inside he will be _so_ pleased that you're proud of him. And you _know_ that, Luke."

Luke sighed, and Rory said, "Okay, don't tell him. But show him."

"How?" Luke said, like it was obvious, and he was annoyed that he couldn't see the answer.

"Read his book," Rory said simply, turning back to eat some breakfast.

Luke thought over her words and wanted to say more, say 'no', even, but Rory was gone from any further conversation. Apples and adventures, omelets and plot twists were all her mind could think of. So, Luke sighed, nodded to himself reluctantly, and went back behind the counter.

Rory was focused, and happy, and sad, and excited all at the same time. It was one thing to start out on this on a wild, blind hope that you'd get this done. But to actually be this close to completion . . . it was insane. It was the end of a journey, end of a movie, end of a book. Really. It was bittersweet to Rory as she watched the word count climb higher and higher. The faster she went, the sooner it would all be over. And how she wanted it all to be over, done, finished. It would be _awesome_.

And yet, she didn't want it to end. Why would she want this to end?

She was pulled from this contemplative mood when she felt Babette's hand on her shoulder. "Hey, doll. Heard from Luke you're almost done. We just wanted to say that we're proud of ya. Go get 'em, sugar!" Babette squeezed her shoulder, and Morey gave her a thumb's up.

Rory smiled at them. They weren't the only ones to give her such words of encouragement, though. Kirk, Andrew, Lane, Miss Patty, Caesar . . . all found time to give her a peppy good word. She beamed, but felt anxious to get done, to actually _earn_ this praise.

Her mom popped in. "Hey, kid," she said, hugging her from the back.

"How'd you escape the Inn? Isn't it packed around Thanksgiving?" Rory wanted to know.

"Well, usually, yeah, but this year's particular pack was boring and sleeping-in. Sookie's sleeping off a hangover and Michel has nothing to do but mope around the lobby. I _had_ to leave, to save my sanity," Lorelai said.

"Cool. So, I'm less than two hundred words away from winning," Rory said.

"Cool! I'm going to get some coffee. Let me know when you win; I got my impromptu dancing shoes ready and inching to move," Lorelai said, skipping over to the counter to get coffee and glow over her daughter to Luke.

Rory turned back to her computer. Thalia and Josef's adventures had come to an end. They'd taken a cab from the airport back to her grandmother's house in New York. She was an old lady, glowing with pride as they burst with stories just like she always had.

"Hey," Rory heard. She saw Jess sitting across from her. Arms folded and on the table, his eyes never left hers. "Almost?" he said.

"Almost," she said.

He reached out and squeezed her hand. "You got this," he said.

"Thanks," she said.

He was silent and let her actually work. He knew the struggle, the great push, that one last effort. And then she looked over at him, her fingers silent. She said nothing, but her eyes glowed and her infectious smile grew and grew. She tapped a few more keys, then turned her laptop to him. She'd logged in her last words on the site.

"I won," she said.

"You won," he said, that glint of a smile curling his lips.

"I won," she said.

"You won," he said, standing up and swooping her up in his arms as she squealed. He kissed her soundly just as Lorelai turned from Luke, saying, "You did it?!"

Rory nodded, Lorelai squealed, and Jess let her go so they could jump up and down and squeal together. When they finally settled down, Rory pulled out her cellphone. "I gotta tell Grandma and Grandpa! What's Grandma's number?"

Lorelai, in her excitement, stuttered out her mom's number. Rory dialed and had it against her ear when Luke pointed a finger out the door.

"Really? On this special occasion? Really?" Lorelai scoffed.

Luke hid a smile, but pointed harder.

Rory didn't mind. She hurried out, excited when she heard her grandma pick up. She couldn't wait to tell her grandparents that she'd won NaNoWriMo and finished writing a book.

 **DUDES, I DID IT.**

 **This was only slightly _less_ hard than NaNoWriMo, LOL. (I finished! And I'm so tired of it, I wish it didn't exist. And yet I love it. XD)**

 **I feel just as happy as Rory does. Anyone who's won NaNoWriMo knows the feeling. Knows the sigh of relief, the immediate wishing of 'I wish it hadn't ended. I wish I could keep doing it.' Even though it dragged sometimes and you had to force yourself to write, you wish you could still do it.**

 **That's why you do NaNoWriMo again next year. You simply . . . miss it.**

 **I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I liked writing it. (And maybe feel slightly motivated to try NaNoWriMo one of these days. And if you did do NaNoWriMo this year, take this story as a reward for finishing it, or even just attempting it.)**

 **For the last time, thanks for reading. Please, review?**


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